


A Little Sister

by ShimmeringDarkness



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Henry's Little Sister, Jack is a doctor, and Kai and Hank, so is Henry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:47:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 56,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26977582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShimmeringDarkness/pseuds/ShimmeringDarkness
Summary: Sorry, this chapter is just background info/setting up my AU. The story will start next chapter!
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Emily Prentiss, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/William LaMontagne Jr.
Kudos: 1





	1. Introduction/Background

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, this chapter is just background info/setting up my AU. The story will start next chapter!

For this story the BAU team that I always thought was the best never left. Penelope and Derek got married and Hank is their son. Hotch and Emily got married and Emily adopted Jack so she would be his parent as well. JJ and Will did have Michael after Henry, but he has his own depressing plotline so he’ll only appear once or twice, and then they had a daughter when Henry was 11 named Chloe. Dave married Strauss and the team all likes her now that she’s not so strict and icy towards them. Spencer married a woman named Melody who was also incredibly smart, and a cardio thoracic surgeon. In this story Jack is 27, Henry is 26, Chloe is 15, Hank is 24, Kai is 24. 

Jack, Henry, Hank, and Kai are all doctors and have a medical practice that’s connected to the main hospital network in DC so they can do surgeries there, but they own their practice for just day to day checkups. It’s not it’s own building exactly, it’s on the 4th floor of the hospital, but how the hospital system worked was there were practices on various practices and specialties on different floors who are affiliated with University Hospitals, but not necessarily directly employed by the hospital. They all are family medicine doctors in the clinic with their own specialties. Hank does both family medicine and orthopedics and general and orthopedic surgery. Jack is a family medicine doctor but specializes as an OBGYN and in Andrology (female and male reproductive health respectively), and is double board certified in prenatal/infant and gynecologic surgery. Kai does family medicine, but mostly works in pediatrics and is a pediatric surgeon. Henry is a family medicine doctor, but also a trained psychiatrist so he takes care of the mental health concerns of patients and spends less of his time acting as a regular doctor than his friends, mostly working in counseling and therapy.

The Hotchner's live right next door to the LaMontagne household, as they had moved into the house next door when Henry was 6 and Jack was 7. It’s a very large, safe neighborhood and because the two families had taken down the fence between their yards but left the fences ringing the edge of their two properties, it was the usual gathering area for the team and their families. When Jack moved out he bought a house that was coincidentally in the same neighborhood but a few streets over so his parents weren’t still right on top of him, and when Henry had wanted to move out a year later he and Jack had decided to live together, so Henry had moved in with Jack. They had drug Derek in to redo some of the aspects of the house so while it was still very open they both had their private space. Hank and Kai are both best friends just like Henry and Jack are, and live in a house together about 10 minutes away from where Henry and Jack live. 

Chloe goes to Springfield High School, which is conveniently right down the street from her brother’s clinic, so sometimes she goes over there to hang out with them after school, especially if JJ’s on a case and Will is on a shift at the same time. She’s really close to all four of them, and treats them all as her brothers and they all think of her as a little sister, especially Jack because being best friends with Henry for her whole life and her having such a close relationship with her brother even though he’s 11 years older meant that Chloe and Jack are really close as well and she just thinks of him as truly a brother, even more than she already does with Hank and Kai.


	2. Walking In

Chloe has always been a pretty good kid, and pretty well behaved, and she pretty much always followed Will and JJ’s rules without much defiance or bending the rules so when JJ was out on a case and Will had a shift and she texted both of them asking if she could have a friend over and Will had agreed without hardly any questioning and JJ agreed as well. Now though, as JJ was walking into work the next morning all she could think about was what an idiot she was, and how she could’ve possibly thought letting her 15-year-old daughter have a friend she’d conveniently forgotten to give them the name of when she asked for permission was a good idea. At the same time her heart felt like it was being strangled by the blunt reality that her daughter, her little baby girl, was growing up and she didn’t know when it had happened.

She’d know her daughter had a boyfriend, and she’d briefly mentioned it to Will, but they both just assumed it was one of those little flirty smiles and embarrassed hugs and sitting next to each other at lunch kind of teenager relationships, not…. Laying on her daughter’s bed both missing their shirts, making out, and with Matt’s hand on her chest and the other under her skirt! 

JJ had landed from their last case and had texted Will who was just getting off of his shift, and the two had pulled into the driveway at the same time, so after greeting each other happily after JJ had been beaten down by yet another long case, had wandered into the kitchen expecting to hear the sounds of giggling teenage girls but was confused when they heard nothing and had made their way to Chloe’s bedroom where they’d been shocked and alarmed by the scene they’d walked in on. Will had just about flipped his shit and JJ had been right behind him, and Matt had quickly left the scene, but the three in the LaMontagne household had had a long, harsh, discussion after that. 

As JJ walked past her teammates’ desks and up to her office she was so lost in thought and a swirl of emotions and making an excruciating effort to keep her face neutral and her nostrils from flaring just at the thought of the scene she and Will had walked in on last night. On top of that, the two parents had barely gotten any sleep last night, tossing and turning and consumed with thoughts of what might’ve happened had they not gotten home when they had, and when their daughter had grown up that much, when she wasn’t quite the innocent 5 year old with messy, wavy golden hair and those wide blue eyes. When she’d developed into a beautiful girl who had more on her mind than making cookies with her mama and playing cops and robbers with her ‘big bwuvers’ and her daddy.

JJ went straight for the coffee pot in the breakroom after dropping her bags and made herself a large mug before zooming back to her office and dropping into her chair heavily as her mind continued to race. Her daughter had always been so close to her, always told her everything, how had she not realized her daughter thought she was ready to become sexually active. That thought alone horrified her. Chloe was 15, she didn’t need to be having sex yet! Chloe had sworn up and down during their ‘conversation’ last night that nothing more was going to happen weather Will and JJ had gotten home or not and that she wasn’t planning on having sex yet, and the profiler in JJ had seen that her daughter wasn’t lying, but the mother in her was finding it very hard to look past the evidence that she had stared at the prior night.

JJ finally put herself to focusing on her files and sorting through case requests. A little before lunch she took another stack to each profiler in the bullpen and to Hotch and Rossi who all groaned, especially Derek, with how determined she was today and how quickly she was cranking out more consults for each of them. They could all tell something was off with her though, she’d barely said 3 words to any of them all morning, aside from Hotch, and that was only because he asked her a work related question, and even then she’d answered it shortly before disappearing into her office.

Finally just as Penelope, Derek, Spencer, and Emily were chatting around the desks in the bullpen and eating lunch they’d gotten from the cafeteria, JJ reappeared from her office to get more coffee and Emily followed her into the breakroom to get some coffee as well and to figure out what was going on and why JJ seemed to have none of her usual infinite patience and gentleness she usually did.

“JJ, everything okay?”

JJ tensed, having not heard Emily behind her and answered with a clipped “Fine. Why?”

Emily hesitated “Because to be honest, you don’t sound fine. You look like something’s wrong, what’s going on Jay?”

JJ sighed and her shoulders dropped “Just family stuff. Don’t worry about it, Em.”

Emily frowned “Of course I’m going to worry, we’re all family. C’mon, you look really tense, it’ll help to talk about it, and it looks like whatever it was kept you from getting one wink of sleep last night.”

JJ whirled and snapped before she could rein in her short fuse “Because I didn’t. What happened to not profiling each other?”

Emily took a step back, the hurt and shock evident on her face but before she could even say anything JJ shrank in on herself “I’m sorry Em, you didn’t deserve that, I just feel like I’ve got no patience today.”

Emily nodded and stepped forward, wrapping her best friend in a hug that JJ relaxed into. “What’s going on JJ? Is Will okay? Henry? Chloe?”

JJ nodded “Yeah, we’re… okay.”

Emily caught the hesitation before okay and frowned.

She urged JJ to go on and JJ sighed “You can’t tell anyone, okay?”

Emily nodded and pulled JJ down to sit at the table in the breakroom. JJ sighed and let her face rest on her hand “Last night, Chloe had asked us to have a friend over even though Will was on shift and we were still on the case and we agreed without asking any questions, ‘cause she’s never one to push the rules or anything ya know?”

Emily nodded, listening intently, and worriedly, thinking of what could’ve gone wrong there and JJ continued. “Will and I got home at the same time last night but when we walked in we didn’t hear anything so we went up to her bedroom and she… Chloe was in bed with a boy.”

At Emily’s gasp JJ went to quickly continue before Emily assumed something more than had happened but froze at Derek’s hard “SHE WAS WHAT?”   
Both womens’ heads snapped to the door where Derek was looking at them frozen, his hand clenched around his phone tightly with a furious look on his face.

JJ couldn’t help but laugh and when both people looked at her confused she composed herself and said “Your face right there, yep pretty much mirrored Will’s face perfectly.”

Derek grumbled under his breath but frowned and growled out lowly “I didn’t hear you right did I?”

Both Emily and Derek eyed JJ with piercing stares and she sighed but continued “You did, but I hadn’t finished. They weren’t you know, like uh,” JJ choked over her words before she could continue so changed her phrasing and said “They were just making out and laying on her bed, but they both had their shirts off and her boyfriend, like how did I not realize it was that kind of boyfriend, I thought it was just a cute little school relationship or something, but this kid had his one hand on her chest and the other up under her skirt. When the hell did she grow up, I feel like it was yesterday she and Henry would run around outside or when she begged him and Jack to play with her, teach her how to play basketball, play t-ball. I can still see Henry and Jack in the pool with her laughing and playing with her as they taught her how to swim after Will and I tried a million times and she couldn’t get it.”

JJ dropped her head into her hands as she mumbled “Where did that little girl go? And then what Will and I walked in on? She’s too young. I didn’t even know she was thinking about boys like that. She’s always been so focused on school and sports that she hardly ever even talked about boys, I-I didn’t think… I didn’t think she….” JJ trailed off again but both agents in the room with her understood what she was trying to say.

Emily gently pulled her friend in for another hug while Derek rubbed her shoulder.

JJ wiped her face off and stood up, clearly trying to push it out of her mind again and pulling her phone out to check her email as she went down to the cafeteria to grab a wrap for lunch only to run smack into someone making her stumble back. “Oh I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking…” She trailed off when she realized she’d actually run into Will. “Oh, babe, sorry, hi, what are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, because I am…” Will chuckled and cut his wife off with a kiss. “I figured I would bring you lunch, if you’re not too busy?”

JJ smiled up at her husband “No, I’m not actually today. This is a good surprise, according to Emily apparently I’ve been grumpy all day.”

Will frowned briefly but Derek, Emily, and Penelope all piped up “She has!”

From the bullpen making JJ groan and turn around to very maturely stick her tongue out at her teammates and Will laugh and kiss his wife’s forehead gently. 

Emily smiled at the couple “You guys want to eat with us or you going out somewhere?”

JJ shrugged and looked at Will who shrugged and said “I brought food for Jay and I, we can just eat here.”

JJ nodded and the two pulled up chairs to the desks and the group of them plus Dave had joined them, all ate in silence for a couple of minutes and until finally Derek couldn’t contain his curiosity and worry about the girl he looked at like a niece and looking between JJ and Will and said “What are you guys going to do about Chloe? I just mean like.. she’s 15 and…”

JJ sighed while Will chuckled slightly “Should’ve known you guys would all know by now.”

JJ protested immediately and said “Hey I only told Emily because she kept bugging me about what was bothering me, it’s not my fault Derek walked in in the middle of our conversation.”

Will pressed a kiss to JJ’s temple, “I didn’t mean that, cher, I just meant one way or another there really are no secrets with this group of people.”

Penelope frowned “Right, you should know that by now, but what am I missing?”

JJ sighed and dropped her head in her hands while Will just groaned. Emily finally spoke up “Last night after Will’s shift and when JJ got home from the case they walked in on Chloe making out with her boyfriend.”

Dave’s eyes widened and he nodded his understanding but both Spencer and Penelope both looked confused “Okay?”

Derek cleared his throat awkwardly and said “From what JJ said they were both missing their shirts and were feeling each other up pretty… intimately.”

Penelope gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth while Spencer just blushed and looked away. Finally Penelope said “B-but she’s so young. She’s cute little innocent Chloe, she’s only 15.”

JJ groaned and nodded “Welcome to the painful revelation that has slammed both of us in the face in the last 24 hours.”

The team was quiet for a moment before Penelope asked “Have you, you know, had that talk with her? Is she on birth control?”

JJ just groaned and buried her head in Will’s shoulder who wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder until JJ responded “No and no. I hadn’t really thought she was even thinking about boys like that, between school and sports she only really talks about them in a completely platonic way… but she’s 15. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already well informed from her classmates on everything relating to…” She shuddered slightly and pinched her eyes shut as she mumbled out the word “Sex.”

A shocked “Um, what?!” came from behind Rossi and Emily’s shoulders and they jumped as everyone’s eyes snapped up to the towering frame of Jack Hotchner as he looked at JJ with raised eyebrows. JJ and Emily both groaned this time at this same conversation being walked into, yet again.

Emily finally looked up at her son, if not by blood then by her love for him, but either way, “Jack? What are you doing here? Where’d you come from? And how the hell’d you sneak up on a whole group of FBI agents?”

Jack frowned at his obvious question being ignored but answered Emily anyways, “In reverse order, because I’ve been doing it my whole life and I find entertainment in actually being able to surprise FBI agents to be honest, uh most recently my dad’s office, and eating lunch with Dad because I’ve been in Florida for the past week at a medical conference.”

Emily took in her son’s outfit and frowned “What’s up with the scrubs?”

All four of the boys didn’t usually scrubs just for day to day checkups, because especially when they had nervous patients, just wearing regular clothes usually helped with the whole “White Coat Syndrome” as they’d explained it once.

Jack couldn’t help the wide smile that crossed his face “Surgery this morning, tiny baby girl, 25 weeks, emergency c-section but it looks positive, at least when I left the hospital it did.”

The group all looked impressed and Penelope said “But that’s really early right?”

Jack nodded “24 weeks is usually what we consider ‘viable’ meaning the baby has a better than 50% chance of surviving, but even then, it’s still not a great percentage because it’s still 15 weeks early. The mom just turned 17 2 months ago, she was raped at 16, very brutally. The ER called me down on her intake to see what her best treatment options were and I’ve been her doctor since. When she found out she was pregnant she was adamant she was keeping the baby because she wanted something good to come out of it, and her whole family was behind her, supporting her. When she went into labor this morning we were worried about her life, and her baby’s but mom is completely stable and we’re doing everything for her baby in the picu, but it does actually look hopeful for once.”

The whole group of FBI agents was angry someone could do that to a 16-year-old, but buoyed by the ending to the story, and the way the girl stayed happy and remained hopeful and good-spirited even after such a trauma. 

Emily smiled “That’s what you’re always talking about right?”

Jack frowned “Hmm?”

“When someone asks why you chose the specialty you did and you say that bringing a life into the world, a pure, innocent child, and seeing the joy on the faces of new parents, that’s the kind of story you’re talking about right?”

Jack smiled and nodded “Yeah, it’s these cases with the good endings, where you really can light up a new family, that make it the best job in the world.”

The group all nodded and smiled, they knew Jack faced criticism for being a male in a female oriented field, but they could see why he really did the job, the way it lit up his face when he talked about the cases, or how he got just as invested in his struggling patients’ cases as they were.

Jack spoke up “But what the hell conversation did I walk into, seriously?”

Seeing no one was going to speak up because Emily had saved them last time but didn’t want to explain it to her son JJ groaned and covered her face with her hands again as she said “Will and I walked in on Chloe laying in her bed last night with her boyfriend and they were making out and missing their shirts and touching each other… intimately.”

Jack’s jaw dropped and he tensed as his arms crossed, making his large biceps bulge against the sleeves of his tight scrub shirt. “She was… are you serious right now? She’s 15!”

Will snorted “Preaching to the choir, Jack. You’re not the one who walked in on your 15-year-old daughter like that.”

Jack groaned and flopped down in one of the nearby chairs and said “No but I did just picture the girl I think of as my little sister like that, and ughhh god.”

The whole group laughed at his dramatics. 

Suddenly Jack lifted his head up to look at JJ intently “In the least awkward way possible, have you, you know talked to her about sex?”

JJ groaned and shook her head “I didn’t even think she was thinking about boys like that. And how the hell can you say that without stuttering a million times, urgh.”

Jack’s expression turned amused “Because I say the word sex every day, multiple times a day, kinda my job in case you forgot.”

JJ rolled her eyes while Derek got a mischievous look on his face and said “So I think what you’re saying is you’re offering to have the talk with Chloe so Will and JJ don’t have to.”

“Hey! I never said that.”

JJ giggled and smirked at him “I don’t know, maybe you did.”

Jack groaned “Aggh! You people are impossible.”

Derek piped up again mischievously “But you would be able to talk to her the least awkwardly.”

Jack rolled his eyes this time “That doesn’t mean I want to talk to my-my sister about it!”

JJ pretended to pout dramatically at Jack making Will burst out laughing “Hey our deal was I did Henry you got Chlo.”

JJ groaned again “No, you just told Henry not to sleep with girls unless he wanted to be a dad and to use a condom, that was the extent of your ‘talk’ there mister.”

Will laughed devilishly “Hey, we’re not grandparents yet though so I’d say it worked.”

Jack spoke up out of the blue “You know what? I will.”

All eyes flew to him and WIll spoke up first “Wait seriously, why?”

Jack sighed and laced his fingers under his chin as he thought about if he really wanted to explain and he decided he would. He locked eyes with Emily who was one of the only ones who knew the story aside from his dad and her eyes widened and she spoke quietly “Jack, you don’t have to.”

He shook his head and took a deep breath “No, it’s okay.”

He looked around the circle briefly before steeling his resolve and speaking again “No one other than my dad and Emily, and Henry who I called in a panic, knew this, not even Aunt Jess, but you guys remember Mikayla right? My girlfriend Junior and Senior year of high school?”

They nodded and he sighed before continuing, “We were teenagers, careless, invincible teenagers, and you hear all kinds of things in high school. It was her first time, and there’s so many rumors that she can’t get pregnant the first time, and she didn’t want to tell her parents, so she wasn’t on birth control. I had a condom but it ripped, but we just assumed it would be fine. We didn’t tell anyone and three weeks later Mik called me in tears because she’d missed her period.”

He could see all of their faces making the leap but he continued. “I confessed it all to my dad and Emily that night when they got home I was so worried. We scheduled a doctor’s appointment and sh-she was pregnant. Two 17-year-old high school students? We were terrified. 2 weeks later she fell on the stairs, when she broke her ankle if you guys remember, but she also miscarried. To this day I don’t know whether to be happy or sad that we never ended up with a child, we were too young at 17, but still. Those 2 weeks though, it felt like someone had turned the world upside down, so yes, I’ll talk to her, because if she thinks she’s ready to have sex at 15, she needs to realize that those very real consequences that won’t happen to you, that your parents don’t know what they’re talking about, it could happen to you.”

He finished speaking and the whole group was silent for a moment before JJ jumped out of her chair and wrapped him in a tight hug “I’m so sorry Jack.”

He nodded and returned the hug, sensing she needed it just as much as he did. Surprisingly, Will hugged him once JJ stepped back and he returned it tightly. He forced a small smile on his face and laughed a little “Well, somehow I don’t think that was what you guys had planned for lunch today, but...okay.”

He looked at JJ and Will “I’ll pick her up after school today if you guys don’t mind? She gets out at 3:00 right?”

JJ nodded “Yeah, I’ll text her and tell her you’re picking her up.”

Jack nodded and went to step away but she paused him “And Jack? Thank you, for trusting us with that, and for caring about Chloe enough to want to make sure she doesn’t make a mistake.”

Jack smiled gently and nodded “She’s my little sister in every sense other than blood. I’d do anything for her.”

JJ smiled ruefully and nodded. Jack went to walk away again right as his dad walked out of his office and down the stairs towards where the group was before looking up and pausing “Jack? You’re still here?”

Jack smiled “On my way out.” As he reached his dad though, he paused and wrapped his arms around his dad tightly resting his head on his shoulder briefly. Hotch blinked but set his coffee mug on the desk next to him and returned the hug until his son stepped back.

“What was that for?”

Jack smiled “Just for being you.”

Jack turned and walked out of the bullpen and got on the elevator.

Hotch walked over to his team, “Did I miss something?”

Emily smiled and walked over and kissed her husband on the cheek “I think your son just got a little caught up in reminiscing.”

“O-okay.”

The group chuckled slightly and Hotch shook his head thinking he was very out of the loop but walking off to go get coffee.


	3. The Talk

When Jack got back to the hospital, he stopped by the nicu to look on the little girl from the morning, happy that her vitals still looked stable before going on to the practice and checking with his receptionist who confirmed that he, as if the universe was actually working in his favor for once, had his last appointment at 2 that afternoon. He should be able to pick Chloe up on time.

He made it through the two appointments quickly and sat down in his office at 2:30 to put his patient files back away and grab his stuff, seeing as he only needed to leave at 2:50 since Chloe’s high school was literally right down the street from the hospital, maybe a 5 minute drive. 

He swung by the breakroom on his way out to refill his travel mug with coffee, he was just as addicted to it as his parents and Henry looked up at him in surprise. 

“Leaving already? Are you sick? Is everyone okay? You never leave before 5:30 even if you don’t have appointments.”

Jack chuckled “I do when I have a 15-year-old to pick up from High School in 10 minutes.”

Henry frowned “You’re picking up Chlo? What’s going on?”

Jack sighed “We just need to have a little chat.”

Henry pursed his lips “Yeah, not making me any less suspicious. What’s going on?”

Jack groaned and sat down “Man, she is not going to like how many people know. You know how I went to see dad at lunch, apparently your parents walked in on Chlo making out with her boyfriend and feeling each other up without their shirts on, and your mom hasn’t had the talk with her because she didn’t know Chloe was thinking about boys like that, and Derek joked that I should do it and I said I would, because of everything that happened with Mikayla, you know?”

Henry was just gaping at him and Jack realized he probably should have slowed down that information stream just a little.

“But, sh-she wasn’t actually, you know, like doing it? Right?”

Jack shook his head “Not from what I was told, she told them they weren’t planning on having sex even if they hadn’t been interrupted, but, seeing as I’d rather not have her as a patient of mine, in that sense at least, for at least another 5 or 6 years minimum, she and I are going to have a little chat, which reminds me, don’t come home early tonight, I don’t think she’ll appreciate you being there for it.”

Henry nodded slowly “Yeah no, got it, I have appointments until 7 tonight anyways. And 5 years, like at least 20! Seriously!”

Jack laughed and stood up “Sorry, but I don’t think you can convince your parents to lock her in a chastity belt until she’s 35.”

Henry pouted “I can try.”

Jack shook his head “You do that. See you tomorrow.”

Henry nodded “Oh, how’d your emergency go this morning?”

Jack smiled widely “It was Ruby, the 17-year-old.”

Henry looked intrigued, Ruby was also his patient because of the trauma she faced.

Jack continued “Emergency C-section, she’ll be fine, and little baby Harris has a fighting chance.”

Henry smiled “That’s amazing.”

Jack nodded “Yep.”

Jack walked out of the room and headed down to the staff parking lot and relaxing in his car for a moment, whether he thought he was the best person for this talk and wanted to do it or not, it was still going to be way more awkward talking to his little sister about sex than just any patient of his.

When he pulled up outside of her school at 3:02, Chloe was waiting. She dumped her backpack in the backseat and hopped in with a smile kissing her ‘older brother’s’ cheek as she slid in the passenger seat “To what do I owe the pleasure of you picking me up today, Jack?”

Jack smiled at her gently and shrugged “I offered to.”

Chloe blinked but shrugged “Ookay? Where are we going?”

Jack smiled at her “My house, I wanted to talk to you about something, but I figured we could get ice cream on the way if you want?”

Distracted by the offer of ice cream from her normally more health conscious brother of the two, she nodded happily and forgot about the first half of Jack’s sentence. The two stopped at an ice cream place that was a few blocks from her school and Jack got a single scoop while Chloe got a milkshake making Jack roll his eyes at her. 

“You are aware you’re not going to be growing forever right?”

Chloe laughed and rolled her eyes “But I am right now, and aren’t you guys always telling me I don’t weigh enough anyways and that I need to be eating more?”

Jack rolled his eyes “More healthy food, not just ice cream.”

“But there’s no bad time for ice cream, it’s just sooo good.”

“Right.”

Chloe snorted “Yeah, yeah, whatever mr. healthy.”

Chloe pretended to pout and absorbed her attention into drinking her shake so the rest of the ride was quiet with the two just listening to the radio.

Finally, they pulled into Jack’s garage just as Chloe was finishing her shake and she moaned “Ugggh, brainfreeze.”

Jack chuckled and kissed her forehead “Sorry Chlo.”

Chloe smiled and slid out of the car grabbing her backpack as Jack got out and grabbed his work backpack. Chloe couldn’t help the smile as she thought of how all of her older brothers carried backpacks instead of one shoulder briefcases or something like that and how she’d noticed once that a lot of the doctors at the hospital did. She’d made the mistake of asking Henry about it once and Hank had overheard and they’d all been in for a lengthy lecture about how backpacks even the weight out putting less stress on your shoulder and back, even though most of them just put it over one shoulder to his endless frustration.

Jack saw her face “What’s that smile about?”

Chloe laughed “I just saw your backpack and I was thinking about Hank’s lecture that first time I asked about why you guys carried backpacks. Also, where’s Henry? I assumed he’d be home since you brought me here.”

Jack smiled “Yeah, that was funny wasn’t it. And nope, Henry’s got appointments until 7 tonight, just you and me for a bit ladybug.”

Chloe smiled as they walked into the house “You haven’t called me that in a while, I like it.”

Jack smiled ruefully “I guess I’ve just been thinking about the past a bit today.”

“Oh” Chloe nodded slightly and dropped her backpack on the kitchen table as Jack dropped his in his office before coming back out and seeing her looking around the kitchen for a snack. He let her eat a granola bar before sitting on one end of the sofa, assuming she would just naturally follow, which she did.

Jack turned towards her, pulling his legs up to sit criss cross and so he was looking right at her. “So I was thinking now would be a good time to have our chat that I mentioned in the car.”

Chloe swallowed roughly as she set the wrapper of her granola bar on the coffee table and turned to mirror his position.

Chloe had a gut feeling she wouldn’t like this conversation, and as any teenager is an expert at, tried to delay it. “Could you go change first though, the scrubs and everything kind of make you look too… serious I guess.”

Jack blinked and looked down at himself, he still had his scrub pants on but he’d taken his scrub top off so he just had a tight undershirt on that he always wore under his scrubs.

He’d forgotten about that and shook his head “Well this is a serious conversation, and I know you, and you deflect everything serious with sarcasm and humor, but I want you to do your best to actually take this seriously, okay?”

Chloe nodded anxiously and Jack sighed, might as well get the part she would be mad about out of the way first. “So your parents mentioned what happened last night to me. Not details or whatever they said to you, just the basic scene they walked in on.”

She was pissed, as expected. “WHAT! How could they?! That’s so unfair! I can’t believe they would go and tell you about that! You! I swear to god we weren’t actually going to do anything more!”

Jack waited until she finished ranting and said “They did it because they had your best interests in mind. None of what they said was to betray your confidence or trust, they were just trying to relay a situation that had happened and that they weren’t sure what to do about it.”

Chloe sighed and deflated, she hated that it was always too hard to stay mad at her parents and especially her brothers.

Jack spoke up again slightly indignantly “And what do you mean tell me? I feel like I should be offended.”

Chloe hesitated “It’s just that you’re just as overprotective of me as Henry or dad, and then like on top of that, just nevermind.”

Jack just chuckled but nodded. “Based on last night, what do you think I want to talk to you about?”

Chloe froze slightly and bit her lip “Uhm, uh, I don’t know.”

Jack raised his eyes “I think you do. This only has to be as awkward and long as you make it.”

Chloe tensed “We really don’t need to talk about-about this. I already know about… stuff from my friends, and we had health class.”

Jack sighed “Health class only covers so much, and there’s a decent chance what your friends are telling you is wrong, and your mom said she’s never really had this talk with you, and yes, it can be uncomfortable, but it’s important. I was still debating on whether or not to tell you this, but I want you to actually pay attention so maybe this will help make you realize it’s serious. You were young, a toddler, when I got my first girlfriend in high school, so I doubt you remember her, but her name was Mikayla. I listened to what my friends said, ignored my parents, because obviously what did they know, parents are stupid.”

Chloe couldn’t help but laugh a little despite herself so Jack continued. “Long story short, it was her first time, and we both knew if it was her first time she wouldn’t get pregnant, right?”

Chloe nodded as though that was obvious and internally Jack sighed, but on the outside he just kept talking, “So we had sex, and I had a condom, but it broke. We didn’t say anything though, didn’t do anything because it would be fine. 3 weeks later she missed her period and called me in tears. 2 days later we went to the doctor who told us she was pregnant. We were teenagers and beyond unready to be parents, but she wanted to keep the baby and I was going to support her.”

Chloe couldn’t stop herself “But, you’re not…”

Jack nodded “No, I didn’t become a parent at 17 because of some stroke of the universe, even now I still don’t know if it was good or bad. She tripped on the stairs at school. We told everyone she broke her ankle, and she did, but she also lost the baby two weeks after we found out it existed. You can say you won’t be the one it happens to a million times, and you won’t be. Until it happens. That’s why this is an important conversation, because your friends tell you that you can’t get pregnant the first time, you can, and a million other rumors that aren’t true either.”

Chloe still looked surprised and whispered out “I’m so sorry Jack.”

Jack nodded, “Thank you, but we’re not sitting here to talk about me right now. I just want you to realize that yes, this is an awkward conversation, and I would probably rather not be here talking about this with my little sister just as much as you would prefer to be anywhere else, but it is important.”

Chloe nodded a little bit and Jack took a deep breath, “First of all, I’m not going to tell you not to have sex because if you really are ready this won’t change that, but maybe I can get you to think over if you really are ready or not. I am going to tell you though, that abstinence is the only way to 100% avoid pregnancy,  _ and _ STDs. That’s what so many people, especially your age forget, is that you don’t want to just prevent pregnancy, you also want to prevent STDs. Some are treatable, but many are for life, and you don’t want to do that to yourself this young, or ever really.”

Chloe couldn’t help herself, she always relied on humor when she was uncomfortable, though she had to admit this would have been way worse with her mom or dad than Jack. “I mean, technically not uh, you know, isn’t 100% effective because it was the  _ Virgin _ Mary.”

Jack groaned “Uggh. Chloe, serious, please?”

Chloe sighed and nodded “Okay, serious.”

Jack nodded “Thank you. And now, I want you to actually say the word sex because this conversation is going to take ten million hours if you can’t even say the basic words. Sex is not dirty, it’s not bad. Is it generally private and you probably shouldn’t just run around talking about it? Yes, But especially right now, we are talking about it, and it’s okay to say the word sex. Penis. Vagina. They’re just terms that society has determined mean something that we should shy away from or be embarrassed to say. You don’t have any idea how many times I say any and all of the above of those words a day.”

Chloe squirmed uncomfortably feeling her face heat up bright red “Yeah, but that’s your job, and it’s weird to say for me.”

Jack nodded “I get that, so I want to just get the weirdness over right now.”

Chloe felt her face burning even more but Jack just waited. He had known this would take a minute before she could work out actually saying the words and not just skating around them.

Finally she spoke up quietly. “Sex, p-penis, v-vagina.”

Jack nodded, that was good enough, she wasn’t going to not be embarrassed or feel awkward in one day. 

Jack took a deep breath before continuing, “Okay, and I’m not judging no matter what, but I just want you to be honest with me. Have you had sex yet?”

Chloe blushed furiously but shook her head.

“I mean more than just penetrative or vaginal sex. You can get STDs other ways too.”

Chloe shook her head again and stared at her lap.

Jack let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, relieved. “Okay, good.”

“Okay, um, your mom briefly described what happened last night, but have you gone any further than that? Like pants and undergarments off as well?”

Chloe shook her head but this time actually replied as well “Last night was the f-furthest we’d ever gone, you know, with my shirt off and everything. Mostly just making out and stuff.”

Jack nodded “Okay. Uh, you learned about the basics in school right? I don’t actually want this to be more painful than necessary for you, despite what you're probably thinking.”

Chloe smiled slightly “I was actually just thinking that I hated this but it was probably better than talking about it with mom or dad because they’d be awkward and stuttering and blushing as much as me but you’re just being kind of chill and normal about it, even though no matter what you say, I 100% can tell you don’t want me to have sex.”

Jack smiled but tilted his head in acknowledgement, “Well to be honest I don’t, you’re 15 and my little sister and I’d rather you never have sex, but it’s not my body it’s yours so it is technically your choice. And to your other point, that’s because it is just something normal, especially for me. Society stigmatizes it but it’s just as normal and natural and okay, for legal, consenting adults, as breathing or eating or sleeping, okay?”

Chloe nodded and Jack continued. “Which brings me to my next point of consent. You always, always, have the right to say no. No one should force you into sex or any kind of sexual act without your permission, your desire really. If you don’t want something, you don’t have to do it no matter what your friends, boyfriends, anybody says, okay? You can say yes that you want it 18 times and I don’t care if you’re both naked and two seconds from him penetrating you, you can still, always, say no. No means no. And if he doesn’t respect that or tries to pressure you, he’s not worth it and he’s not good enough for you. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, but back to my earlier question, you learned the basics about the mechanics in sex ed. In health I would assume?”

Chloe blushed and nodded just slightly so Jack thought for a second before saying “Okay, I want you to define what sex is, as best you can. What it means to you, or just a literal definition.”

Chloe swallowed but said “S-sex is when a man puts his… when he puts himself into the woman’s uh, her vagina and you know uh, yeah.”

Jack put a gentle hand on her knee “I’m not judging Chlo, I want you to actually explain how you would define sex, not just saying ‘you know’ and ‘uh yeah’”

Chloe flushed brighter but spoke again “He puts himself in her v-vagina and then you know… uh t-thrusts until they orgasm.”

Jack nods “In some ways you’re right, in some ways not exactly. So yes, that is one example of sex. But there’s more to it than just a man thrusting into a woman’s vagina until both parties orgasm, which is why I used the mechanics question to lead into this. That’s probably a pretty good definition though. There’s vaginal sex which is what you just generally described, but there’s also oral sex, and anal sex. We’ll come back to that in a minute though because I wanted to point out one thing you were absolutely right on. You said until both parties orgasm, and that’s important because, in general, sex isn’t just about one person getting off, it’s about both people’s pleasure. Though having sex is about a more intimate connection. It's not always about whether you orgasm or not. It's supposed to be an enjoyable, caring, experience, even if one or both people don't end up finishing. Most women can’t orgasm just from straight penetration, they need more touching, kissing, clitoral stimulation, that kind of thing. Also, no one knows exactly what they like the very first time,you have to experiment a little bit, find what kind of positions, what kind of, ahem, stimulation you like.”

Chloe nodded and felt her face burning at this conversation. Jack knew he had started blushing too, and tried to will it away, he didn’t want Chloe to think this was something wrong or bad or that she couldn’t talk about it.

“Okay, uh anal sex is very similar to vaginal sex in that it’s still penetrative, but you can’t get pregnant just from straight anal sex. However, there is a slight chance that if a man’s semen would drip down to your vagina because of whatever uh, position you’re in, you could get pregnant from that. Sperm can live for up to about 4 days, on average, and they can ‘swim’ very far, so even if it’s just at the entrance of your vagina, there is still the chance you could get pregnant. Also, though you can’t get pregnant, if you were to have anal sex without a condom, you could get an STD still, so it’s still important to be protected and be careful.”

Jack cleared his throat as he organized his next train of thought. “Okay, then there’s also oral sex, which can be done either way. A man can go down on a woman with his mouth on her vagina and clitoris mainly, or if she likes he can also put his mouth on her anus. When a woman performs oral sex on a man it generally involves him putting his penis in her mouth, or if he likes she can also put her mouth on his anus. Again, you can’t get pregnant from oral sex, but you most definitely can still transmit STDs.”

“Okay.”

“Alright, uh, protection. Like I said earlier, seeing as you are not the Virgin Mary, abstinence is the only 100% fool proof way to prevent pregnancy and STDs. If you are going to have sex, birth control with a condom is the best option. A condom can rip, but in general, is still the safest option because it will help protect you from STDs as well as pregnancy. Birth control is also generally pretty effective, however, it can fail, and it also needs a minimum 30 days to be at its maximum protectiveness. That means if you decide you do want to have sex, you can’t just start birth control the day before and be protected. If you do want to go on birth control, there are about a thousand different options from a hundred different kinds of pills, injections, implants, you get the idea.”

Chloe nodded and Jack could see she was still uncomfortable, but the more he talked easily and not awkwardly the more she seemed to actually open her body language towards him and relax, and that she did seem to be actually listening

“Okay, the next thing I wanted to talk to you about was sexuality. Firstly, if you don’t know exactly who you’re interested yet whether that be girls or boys or both. That’s okay, you don’t have to know. It’s also completely okay no matter what the answer to that question is, and you know that none of us, your family, but especially not Henry or me or your mom and dad would ever judge you, okay? So you can be honest, Chlo.”

Chloe blushed a little but said “I mean, I think I’m straight, I like boys.”

Jack smiled at her, “Okay, that’s fine, and if you ever decide you don’t think that’s accurate, you can change your mind, I don’t want you to ever feel like you’re boxed into only liking what you think you should or what other people expect okay? If you actually do, that’s great, and if you don’t, that’s okay too, alright?”

Chloe nodded and Jack continued “Okay, I know I’ve been lecturing a lot but I want you to ask me questions now. Whatever you want and I promise no judgement and I will answer everything as honestly as I can, and considering you have both a gynecology and andrology background to work with here, I can probably answer all of your questions. And you have my complete confidence okay, I won’t tell anyone, not your mom, dad, Henry, any of them what you ask or want to know because I know how hard it can be to ask a parent even basic questions about some things. I also want you to tell me what you’ve heard from your friends so I can tell you what’s true or not.”

“Oh uh, o-okay.”

Chloe hesitated for a second before asking in a soft voice “Would you believe me if I said I had no questions?”

Jack smiled and gently rubbed her ankle that was closest to him “No.”

Chloe looked at her lap and bit her lip before finally saying “I guess talking about what other people have said first is easier.”

Jack nodded, encouraging her to go on, knowing this would be one of the harder parts of the conversation because she couldn’t distance herself from it, didn’t just have to listen, she had to talk about herself, and what she knew.

“Um I guess that if it’s your first time you can’t get pregnant, but you already pointed out that one’s true.”

“Mhm. If you have unprotected sex, first time or no, you can get pregnant.”

Chloe nodded “Um, if you're on your period you can’t get pregnant right, because you’re like uh, bleeding it out I guess right?”

Jack’s eyebrows shot up “No, that’s not true at all, suffice it to say if you have unprotected sex you can get pregnant and you can get STDs. Period. End of Statement.”

Chloe blushed “What about if you uhm, wash everything out after?”

“Yeah, no. Women release one egg a month, but between pre-ejaculate and ejaculate a man can release 200 million sperm at once. Just one of those 200 million has to reach the egg to fertilize it. Washing everything out as you put it, is definitely not a good way to prevent pregnancy, or STDs.”

“Oh, okay, right.”

“Uhm, uh, does, will, uhm…”

Jack rubbed his hand over her ankle again “Whatever you want to ask, you can.”

“Everything you read or watch on TV or something, people always say that your first time will hurt so much, and I just…”

Jack smiled gently “You wanted to know if it’s true?”

Chloe nodded embarrassedly and Jack smiled “You don’t need to be embarrassed. It’s a normal, logical question, but the answer is maybe. As a general rule, sex shouldn’t hurt, if a woman is aroused enough she should be self lubricating enough that while yes, the very first time may be a bit of an uncomfortable stretch, it shouldn’t be a particularly sharp pain. The other unknown factor though is whether her hymen has already been torn or not, because if not, that can cause a bit of a sharper pain and the little bit of bleeding you’ve probably heard about. In your case specifically though, there’s a decent chance it’s already been torn with how active you are in sports, but it may not have. There’s also the question of if the woman has ever put anything in her vagina before at all during masturbation or the like, be it fingers, a sex toy, any of those things also mean her first time with a partner is less likely to hurt. Overall though, it varies person to person, some women say it was very painful, others say it was nothing more than a stretching feeling, so I’m sorry I can’t give you a more exact answer than that.”

Chloe nodded and thought for a moment before saying “You hear that some women are like so 

‘Tight’ or whatever and how that makes it feel better for the guy but I kind of don’t understand that.

Jack nodded “Well first of all the idea of a woman being tight or loose from having more or less sex isn’t exactly true. The vagina is a muscle, and just like your bicep, you can tense it or relax it consciously, or it can tense and activate or relax without you even realizing it or thinking about it. Since the vagina is also a muscle, it can contract or expand. When a person is aroused, the walls of the vagina soften and lengthen, and lubricate, making insertion easier. If they are nervous, the walls of the vagina will naturally contract, making insertion difficult and more uncomfortable. That also relates to whether your first time will hurt or not, we naturally fear what we don’t know, and if you’ve never had sex before, you’re going to naturally be a little more nervous than you otherwise would be. But as to it being tighter or looser, generally a person with less sexual experience will have a tighter vagina just because it’s not as used to being stretched out. Similarly, a woman who has a lot of sex will usually be a little looser because she’s more used to it, but if that same woman then went and didn’t have sex for a long time, her body would get less used to it and be a little tighter again, so it’s a changing thing just depending on how tightly the muscle is contracted and things like that.”

Chloe nodded but she didn’t seem to have any more questions so after a second Jack spoke out with a hint of nerves under his tone., “Okay, there’s one more thing I wanted to go over with you…” He got up and disappeared into the hallway and a couple of minutes later came back through the kitchen grabbing a banana out of the fruit bowl and….”Oh my god no. You are not actually...”

Jack sat back on the couch bringing his feet back up to how he’d been sitting before and set the banana and box of condoms between him and Chloe, and Chloe was almost grateful to see Jack was at least finally blushing even if only a little bit at this development.

Jack looked at her intently “Believe me Chlo, I know of everything we’ve talked about, doing something hands on is probably worse but…”

“But Jack! I swear they told us how to do this in health.”

Jack just continued talking once she’d finished her protest “But nothing. And trust me what I’m about to say is just as awkward for me as it is for you.”

Chloe muttered “I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Okay, so maybe not quite as bad, but do you think I really  _ want _ to be showing my little sister how to put a condom on?”

“Sooo, we don’t have to do this yet? Health class, right?”

Jack leaned back and crossed his arms “How much of what we’ve talked about in the last 45 minutes did you go over in health class?”

Chloe sighed “Not much.”

“Right, Let me ask you a question. If… When you find yourself about to have sex with a guy and they are about to put on a condom…" He pauses for a moment, sighing before continuing. "How are you supposed to know if they're doing it right if you have never learned how to do it yourself?"

Chloe blinks and deflates as she sighs “I-I wouldn’t, so I guess you have a point. But we did learn about in school, you know?"

"You learned in theory. Practice is a little different," Jack offers, leaning forwards to take a condom out of the box before setting it over on the coffee table and handing it to Chloe.

The teenager swallows roughly, she’s never actually touched a condom before, only seen them in movies or pictures, and she’s not totally sure she wants too, but Jack thinks it’s important.

There's a moment of silence as she turns it around in her hands and reads the instructions carefully. 

"Okay, so what now?" 

“Okay, a very important detail here, if a guy tries to open the foil package with his teeth, don't let him. It's better to play safe at all times, alright?" 

Chloe nods in understanding.

"Okay, now open it."

"Open it?" She asks, still hopeful that her older brother would let her out of this without having to put a condom on a piece of fruit. "Do I have to?"

"I'm as eager as you are, Chlo," he says, letting out a slight chuckle.

Opening the package slowly, she takes the condom out and brushes her thumb over the material, testing the ways it feels. Taking a deep breath, she grabs a hold of the banana, resolute on doing a good job, and rolls the condom down the way she remembered her health teacher teaching her. When she's finished, Chloe glances up at Jack, her whole face firetruck red and slight nerves showing in her eyes. "So?"

It was painfully obvious to Jack that she’d never actually handled a man’s penis, or anything resembling male genitalia in that fashion. There was a bit of innocence in her approach to the situation, slight confusion as she tried to remember what to do and where to put her hands, how to grab it.

Jack gave her an encouraging smile, gently helping her to roll the condom on a little farther down. He nods “That was good, I just have two things, one, you want to pinch the tip of the condom a little before rolling it on so that there’s space at the end for the semen to collect, and two, you want to be a little more gentle. You’re squeezing pretty hard there.”

Chloe flushed even more if that was possible and looked down, releasing her grip on the fruit slightly, realizing just how tightly she’d been gripping the banana.

“Okay, Have you learned how to take it off?"

Chloe frowns at Jack. "Why would I need to? Isn't the guy supposed to do that?"

"Usually he will, but again you should know if it's done properly," Jack explains and demonstrates removing it, "or else things could happen."

"Like getting pregnant or infected if he has an STD, right?" she asks.

He places the items back on the coffee table. "Yes, see we’re getting somewhere. And I, for the record, want you coming into my office with neither."

Chloe blushed and nodded.

Jack set the banana off to the side and looked at her intently “Okay, Chloe, if there is anything you actually remember from this in the moment, it’s two things I want you to remember okay?”

Chloe nods, “One," He began. "Nobody, and I mean NOBODY can force you to do what you don't want to. Fight if you have to. You are in control of your body and nobody else is."

Chloe nodded “I know. Derek taught me all kinds of self defense moves.” She finishes with a small grin and Jack nods as she looks at him “And thing number two?”

Jack sighs as he reaches out to rub the back of her hand, “I can only imagine how your mom and dad feel right now, but I’ve watched you go from a little infant the size of my forearm to the beautiful, amazing young woman you are now. But I just want to say that choosing to...lose your virginity is a big choice. One that I'd hate for you to regret. I want you to look back on it in a good way, not in a horrible, regret filled way. Once it's gone, you can't get it back. Once someone has it, it's gone. The wrong person could betray your trust and I don't want that to happen to you. I just want you to be sure. I want you to be in love before you do this. Preferably, I want you to be married, but I'm trying to be real here, and I’m not a hypocrite, but that doesn’t mean I can’t imagine hiding you away and keeping you pure and perfect and protected from having your heart broken.”

Chloe smiled and scooted across the couch to curl up against his side and throw her arms around his body “Awww, you’re so sweet.”

Jack smiled and kissed the top of her head “Yeah, just keep remembering that feeling for the next two minutes because I want you to promise me something.”

She leaned back and turned her head to look at him, “I want you to tell me or mom or Henry or someone, before you decide to have sex so you can be on birth contol, I don’t want you to have to deal with that feeling like your worlds been turned upside down like I did because you were too scared to ask to go on birth control. And then, once you do have sex, this is my inner doctor coming out for a minute, you need to have yearly checkups with a gynecologist just like a regular doctor to make sure everything’s still okay. I know a couple through the hospital who are really good and I would trust you with, so you wouldn’t have to come to me if you don’t want to so it wouldn’t be too awkward for you.”

Chloe smiled and nodded “I promise, I really was being honest that we weren’t going to have sex last night. I already knew I wasn’t ready yet but this whole discussion just cemented that. And I will come to you so I can go on birth control but you don’t need to suggest one of your colleagues for me or something for my exam.”

“Chlo, I know that you don’t like the idea, but…”

She put a finger over his lips to silence him and said “No, it’s not that, I get why it’s important, I just meant if you actually thought I would trust any doctor other than you enough for that kind of exam your nuts. You guys all know that I love all of you as my brothers to death, but I’m not exactly the biggest fan of checkups or anything. I don’t think I could even fathom trusting another doctor with my… personal area like that.”

Jack raised his eyebrows again in surprise but nodded “I don’t have a problem with it, but you’re okay with it? You won’t start acting all awkward and uncomfortable around me?”

Chloe shook her head “I could never, I trust you with my whole life. You’re my big brother, Superman.”

Jack laughed at her childhood nickname for him. He’d always been Superman and Henry was always Batman.

“I just want you to remember you can always come to me with anything, and if you don’t want me to, I promise I won’t tell your parents, or Henry, or whoever, ever.”

Chloe smiled and nodded so Jack stood up, “Okay then ladybug, I’m going to get this stuff out of the way and then do you want dinner, to do homework, or watch TV for a little bit?”

Chloe laughed and said hopefully “Netflix?”

“Fine, for a little bit, and then homework, right? Your parents will kill me if I send you back home at 9 at night with no homework done.”

Chloe groaned “Fine, I promise, I’ll watch one episode of Lucifer and then do my homework. When’s Henry coming home again? And am I staying for dinner with you guys?”

Jack pulled his phone out of his pocket and nodding after he’d confirmed that Henry would be home by 7:45 and that she could stay for dinner as he walked to the kitchen and deposited the banana in the trash and disappeared into the hallway to put the condoms away somewhere before returning to his spot on the couch so she could snuggle up to him. 

As promised, Chloe was nothing if not perfect about keeping her word, the two got up and Chloe went into the kitchen to sit at the table to start her homework, and was happily surprised when Jack came out of his office with his laptop to sit with her.

It was 7 o’clock and nearly two hours into their respective homework and working from home times when Chloe got to her math homework she’d intentionally been putting off until last and started on her questions. She only made it to the 3rd one before groaning in frustration. For some reason these last few chapters made absolutely no sense to her, an annoying fact seeing as she usually breezed through her advanced math homework with no effort.

Jack pushed his computer aside and looked over her shoulder to see what she was working on, and she looked up surprised.

“Oh, are you good at this stuff?”

Jack chuckled and nodded “I know Henry’s been helping you a lot over the last couple of weeks. Who do you think taught him? And your clue is that your parents both sucked at Henry’s Algebra 2 and Intro to Trig homework just as much as they do now with yours.”

Chloe laughed “You?”

“Ding ding ding! We have a winner folks.”

Ella laughed and followed along as Jack slowly explained where she was going wrong and how to fix it on future problems, and worked out the next problems slowly with his guidance over her shoulder. She was amazed at how he managed to help her and not make her upset for not already knowing the answer, and how good and calm of a teacher he was.

They were just working on the last couple of problems, well Ella was, with Jack hovering because she thought she needed his help still even though she’d started understanding it 10 problems ago, she still wanted his reassurance that she was doing it right, when Henry walked in through the garage door. He smiled at the sight of Jack helping his little sister with her homework so diligently and kindly and patiently. He couldn’t help but tease though “Wow Chlo, replacing me already, I’m hurt.”

Chloe laughed and stuck her tongue out at her brother “Well I mean… he is a better teacher…”

Jack laughed “Damn bro, shots fired. She got you there.”

All three of them chuckled for another moment until Henry asked “Any dinner plans and is the mini-me staying?”

Chloe huffed dramatically at the name and said “Yeah, I’m staying, and you have lasagna in your fridge.”

Henry laughed “Okay, and yes, we can have lasagna, go searching did you?”

“I was just hungry when we got here from school and went looking for a snack.”

Jack rolled his eyes “Right… after you’d just had a nice large milkshake.”

Henry laughed “She’s a bottomless pit.”

Jack muttered under his breath “And yet she doesn’t gain half a pound.”

Chloe heard though and pouted “Hey, that’s so not my fault, I’m just amazing that way.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just teasing.”

The dinner between the three was enjoyable and when Chloe went to head back to her house, Jack offered to drive her back but she said she wanted to walk, and since it was in the neighborhood, her two overprotective brothers allowed it as long as she promised to text once she got home.

8 long minutes after she’d left their house, they got a text in the group chat between the three of them saying she was home and they both relaxed.

As the two guys ended up in the living room to watch the basketball game, Henry couldn’t help himself. “So how’d the conversation go?”

Jack nodded “Good. She was uncomfortable, especially at the beginning for a little bit, but then she relaxed and was actually really paying attention. At the end I made her prove she knew how to put a condom on a banana which renewed the embarrassment but we got through it with no permanent damage.”

Henry couldn’t help the half laugh, half groan that escaped as his face twisted up at the unpleasant thought of his little sister learning how to use a condom.

“She’s still a virgin, right?”

Jack sighed “I told her I wouldn’t tell anyone about what we talked about, even you.”   
Henry’s eyes widened “SHE’s not then! Oh my god! Jack! She’s 15!”

Jack groaned and finally snapped out “Yes she is.”

Henry relaxed back into the couch “Oh thank god.”

Jack rolled his eyes “Yes, she is, and I honestly expect her to stay that way for a while, she didn’t indicate in any way she thought she was ready, your parents just got a little over worried by what they walked in on, though to be fair I reacted the same way when they told me. And I only told you because I didn’t want to have to restart your heart right here. I’m off the clock, no medical emergencies.”

“Okay, okay, sorry.”

The two lapsed into silence for a while after that until they finally separated to go to their bedrooms.

Across the neighborhood when Chloe got home, she shut the door behind her and locked it firmly before going to find her parents and say hi.

They both returned her greeting and her mom nonchalantly asked “So how was your night with Jack and Henry?”

Chloe smiled slightly “I know you guys know what Jack and I talked about before Henry got home. It was actually a decent conversation if you ignore that my face was the color of a firetruck the entire time. I promise I’m not going to run out and have sex anytime soon if that’s what your worried about.”

JJ chuckled and stood up to wrap her daughter in a hug “It was actually an honest question but I appreciate the info. You guys had dinner right?”

“Oh, and yeah. Apparently Henry made Lasagna last night so we had that for dinner, it was delicious.”

JJ smiled “Mmm. Sounds good. Homework?”

Chloe shook her head “Jack made sure I got all of that done too. He helped me even better than Henry can sometimes on the math.”

“That’s good.”

The next morning at work the whole team was happy to see JJ had visibly relaxed from yesterday and seemed pretty much back to normal. Derek saw her and made the connection first. “I take it Chloe and Jack’s talk went well yesterday.”

JJ nodded “As well as it could have it seems, she said it was, and I quote ‘actually a decent conversation’ so I think it went better than if Will or I had talked to her as a parent.”

They all nodded and moved on from the subject.


	4. Promises are uncomfortable

It was Chloe’s junior year of high school now, and she was now 16, in mid-november, when she made the familiar trek into the hospital after school and up to the fourth floor. 

She went to figure out where her brother was first, but he wasn’t in his office and a look at his calendar on his desk told her he had a consult in the psych ward in the main part of the hospital, which was perfect. 

Then she went to go find Jack who was in his office, finally taking a break from what had been a very busy day and was relaxing on his sofa eating the salad that was supposed to have been his lunch but he’d ended up working during lunch and never eating. He looked up with a smile when Chloe entered the office. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

She laughed tightly, “I just came by after school but Henry’s in the psych wing doing something and you’re not.”

“And why don’t I believe that?”

Chloe groaned “Because you grew up with profilers just like I did.”

“Yes! Exactly! And normally, if you didn’t want something, you’d either lay in Henry’s office anyways even though he’s not here, or come bug me and lay with me or relax somewhere in here, not perch on the edge of my desk anxiously. What’s going on?”

Chloe swallowed and looked down slightly, breaking eye contact with him before saying “I want to go on birth control.”

Jack just barely managed to not choke on the bite of lettuce he’d just put in his mouth and swallowed it roughly as he sat up and set the container off to the side.

He nodded slowly “Okay.”

Chloe was quick to speak up “Hey, you were the one who made me promise back in like March to come to you to get on birth control before I did anything.”

Jack nodded “And I’m glad that you did. You think you’re ready?”

Chloe nodded, “Yeah, I’ve been with Matt for long enough now, and I just feel like it’s the next step, that it’s what I want to do. But even then, I’m not saying I’m going to run right out and have sex, but I want to be protected like you said just in case I do want to have sex. And I’m old enough, some of my friends have already lost their virginities.”

Jack nodded “Just because they have doesn’t mean you should too though. Are you really sure this is what you want to do, or something you want to do it because they have too.”

Chloe shook her head “No, It’s not about peer pressure or anything like that. I do actually want to do this, but even at that, I did say I’m not planning on running right out and having sex.”

Jack sighed and clasped his fingers under his chin. “Have you talked this over with your parents?”

Chloe shook her head and sighed “No.”

She looked back at her lap and Jack got up and walked over to her tilting her head up to look at him. “I know it’s hard to talk about with your parents, but legally I can’t prescribe you medicine without their knowledge and consent because you’re a minor. I can have them come here if you want? I’ll be there to talk about it with you.”

Chloe bit her lip but nodded her head after a moment or two. “Okay, we can do that.”

Jack held up a hand “But. But, if I’m going to be on your side here, I want the whole truth. Why all of a sudden? And I know you’re holding something back.”

Chloe sighed and wrapped her arms around herself anxiously. “My periods. They’ve always been so painful but I feel like they're getting worse. And I hate talking about it so I haven’t told mom but the last couple of months I’ve thrown up from the amount of pain I’m in. She saw me once and I told her it must’ve just been food poisoning or something, but I’m in so much pain it literally makes me nauseous, and especially the first couple of days just walking around makes me feel like I’m going to collapse in pain.”

Jack felt so bad for his pseudo little sister and stepped forwards to wrap his arms around her tightly, comforting her. “I’m so sorry ladybug, and I wish you’d told someone earlier.”

Chloe nodded against his shoulder “I know, I just hate talking about any of that kind of stuff. I was looking up stuff online though and there are some kinds of birth control that completely eliminate your period. I thought if I could just get that then I wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore.”

Jack nodded “You are right, there are some that are known to eliminate a woman’s period while she’s on the birth control. Why don’t I have your mom and dad come up here tonight and we’ll all talk it over okay?”

Chloe hid her face in her hands but nodded.

Jack thought for a moment “Okay. Are you-are you on your period right now?”

Chloe shook her head “Last week.”

“And did you throw up again that time?”

Chloe nodded and Jack was mentally putting together everything he would want to include in her file.

“Are your periods regular? About how long do they usually last?”

“Almost perfectly every 28 days, occasionally 27 but usually 28. And 5 days, occasionally 6, but the first three and the day before are the worst in terms of pain. Kind of like a warning that it’s coming.”

Jack nodded, “Okay, that’s helpful if they’re already that regular. I have another appointment in a few minutes but I’m going to text your parents to come here around 6:30 if your dad isn’t on shift then?”

“No, He’s on day shift right now so he’ll get off at 4:30, and if they don't have a case mom can usually get home by 6 if we need her to.”

Jack nodded and followed her across the room to where she laid down on his couch and gently pressed a kiss against her forehead before saying “Okay ladybug, I have pregnant people to go check on but feel free to hang in here if you want and do your homework.”

“Okay, have fun working.”

Jack laughed as he walked out the door saying “I will.”

\-----------------------------------------

When JJ had first gotten the text from Jack asking if she and Will could come to his office at around 6:30 that night, her worry that something was wrong with Henry had skyrocketed until she realized he wouldn’t be asking her to wait before coming over. That meant it had to be something that wasn’t really a big deal, and not an emergency or anything. Maybe something was up with Chloe? But even then the two of them have a really close relationship. She could tell Jack or Henry even anything and they had a standing arrangement that as long as it wasn’t harmful or life threatening, or exceptionally illegal, they wouldn’t tell her or Will, which was okay with her because at least her daughter had trusted, mature, adults to go to with things she didn’t feel like she could talk about with her parents.

JJ sighed and did her best to focus on cases after replying that they would be there and telling Will to meet her there.

She packed up her stuff at 6:00 to head out, she’d checked with Hotch already that she wouldn’t need to stay later than that for anything, but of course with how late their team stayed so many nights, she was the first one leaving and Derek stopped her. “Hot date, JJ?”

JJ laughed and shook her head “No, not that I know of at least. Jack texted me earlier, asked Will and I to meet him at his office at 6:30.”

That got the whole team’s attention “What? Why? Is everything okay?”

JJ made a face “I don’t know, but I think everything’s okay. He didn’t say much in the text and then when I tried to ask more questions I got a reply from a surgical nurse that he was in the middle of emergency surgery.”

The nodded and Emily just gave her an encouraging smile. “Well I hope everything’s okay then.”

JJ nodded her appreciation and got onto one of the elevators, heading down to her car in the parking garage.

She got to the hospital at 6:25 and saw that Will was already there and parked next to him, though apparently he’d just gotten there since when she walked inside he was just pressing the button for the elevator.

She greeted him with a kiss that he returned and the two stood in a simple quiet as they rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and headed to Jack’s office.

JJ knocked on the door and his voice beckoned them in so they pushed it open and couldn’t help but smile at the scene they walked into, of Chloe, looking to be kicking Jack’s butt in some card game.

Will spoke up “What’cha guys playing?”

Chloe looked up and laughed “War, and I’m destroying Jack.”

Jack groaned “How, how is it that I can be one of the only people to have ever beaten a genius at poker, and a 16-year-old is killing me at War.”

Chloe giggled “Because I’m just that awesome.”

Jack shook his head and looked at Chloe “Okay ladybug, games over, you win.”

Chloe put her hands up in the air “YES!”

The two parents smiled at their daughter and watched as Jack put the deck of cards away and put them into his desk somewhere before sitting down at his desk and turning to put most of the papers that were on his desk onto a shelf behind him so that his desk was pretty empty. He gestured to them to sit down in front of his desk and had Chloe pull one of the extra chairs over to the desk so they were all sitting around it.

Chloe bit her lip “Serious talk now?”

Jack nodded and pulled one of the files from the papers he’d left on his desk out and set it to where it was more visible and both Will and JJ could see it had their daughter’s name on it and they tensed slightly and both looked at Chloe with curious eyes, but she blushed and looked at her lap so they looked at Jack who presented a rather imposing frame even sitting down, behind his desk. He was wearing a tight light blue polo that was practically a second skin and rippled with his muscles as he twisted and bent to reach for different things.

He folded his hands on his desk and said “Okay, first of all I just want to say that I’m fighting in the middle of playing her older brother and a doctor right now, but back in March when we had our conversation about sex, I made Chloe promise me a couple of things, one of which was to tell me before she had sex because I wanted to talk about putting her on birth control.”

Both of her parents' eyes flew to Chloe and widened in shock and Will sputtered out “Chlo, you’re sixteen.”

Chloe blushed even more and tried to hide her face in her hands and mumbled “Just let him keep talking.”

They nodded and looked back to Jack who continued “That’s what I assumed too and we had another discussion over why and if she really felt she was ready for that and if she wanted to do it, until I finally got the actual reason out of her for why she wants to go on birth control.”

Both Will and JJ’s eyebrows raised but they let him continue. “I don’t know how honest she really is with you guys about her periods, but from what she’s told me they've always been pretty bad.”

JJ nodded at that and blushed slightly but said “Yeah, when I was her age I had pretty bad cramps too.”

Jack nodded “Which makes sense, most womens’ cycles generally mirror their mothers’ at least somewhat. What she also told me though, is their getting worse, to the point where she can’t stop herself from throwing up at the amount of pain she’s in sometimes, especially for the first couple of days, and that even just walking around feels like she’s being stabbed with white hot pokers.”

JJ turned and reached out of take hold of Chloe's hand “Oh baby. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you say anything, we would have done something to help…. Wait a couple of months back when you threw up and then again last week and you said it must have been food poisoning…”

Chloe nodded “I’m sorry for lying, it’s just… hard to talk about.”

JJ sighed “I know baby girl, and I get it, but you know you can always come to me and I’ll always listen, never judge, I just want you to be happy.”

Chloe sighed and nodded. “I know.”

Jack took over the conversation again. “So apparently, she went online to do some research of what she could do, and so she asked me to go on birth control to try and stop her periods. Both personally and professionally I’m inclined to agree with her that it would be a good idea. Obviously, as someone who loves her like she’s my little sister by blood not just bond, I don’t want to see, or know she’s in that kind of pain. Professionally, that level of pain does take a serious toll on the body, and on a person’s mental health dealing with that every month. On top of that, she is already so light for how tall she is, throwing up every month isn’t good for her in that regard either.”

Will sighed and looked between his daughter and the grown up he always thought of as a son. “Obviously, firstly I want to say do whatever you can so she’s not in so much pain and everything, because I mean she’s my baby girl, and I hate the thought that she’s sick every month because of this, but she’s also my little girl, and you hear stories about teenagers who get on birth control, and then…”

Chloe looked up finally and looked at her dad “And then they go and sleep around and get an STD or something. I promise dad, I’m not just doing this to be able to go have sex. I’m not going to lie though, do I think sometime in the general near term I’m going to feel ready and want to have sex, yes, but I know that isn’t now, but even if it was, at least this way I’m being safer.”

Will nodded “I know, and I trust you, and I know I can’t stop you from growing up, but it’s just hard to be smacked in the face with reality sometimes that the little baby that I remember that was only a couple of minutes old and wrapped in the little pink blanket isn’t the person standing in front of me anymore. You’ve grown so much and obviously that’s what’s supposed to happen and I couldn’t be more proud of you, it’s just hard to watch your baby get so big and wonder when the heck it happened.”

Chloe nodded and walked over to the other side of the desk where he was sitting and bent down to wrap him in a hug. “Aww, I love you too, and I’m not quite too big for you yet, I promise.”

Will nodded “I know baby girl.”

Chloe sat back down in her chair and JJ nodded as well, “I agree with that, it’s hard to watch you grow up even more, but I do trust you, and I know that you’ll be careful, and if going on birth control will help will help, then I’m definitely in support of the idea."

Jack nodded and Chloe relaxed in relief slightly as Jack spoke again "Okay, then I think the first thing to talk about is that there are a lot of different kinds of birth control, with different side effects and benefits. The main kinds I would categorize them as though are birth control pills which are probably what you think of most commonly as birth control. Then there's implants, patches and rings, IUDs, and injections."

Chloe blinked. "And here I thought there were a million different options."

Will couldn't help his chuckle as he was just as lost, but Jack sighed and eyed Chloe intently. "Chlo, serious please?"

Chloe sighed and nodded, so Jack continued. "So yes, there are a lot of different options, and it might take a little time to figure out but we will figure out what works best for you. Obviously they all work as birth control but some have different side effects as well. With our intent of trying to manage your periods, there's a couple of different ways to do that. We could try and just skip your period for lack of a better word. It's called menstrual suppression and the type of hormonal birth control you choose will change how long you'll go without getting one. We could also try an hbc that will lighten the bleeding and cramps, but you would still usually have it and it would keep it pretty regular.”

Chloe bit her lip “To be honest I’d rather just miss it all together.”

Jack nodded “Okay, then I think that completely wipes implants from the table because only about 25% of women report stopping their period entirely with them. Injections work fairly well, but it takes about a year to completely stop your period with them, and you’ll still have breakthrough bleeding pretty often, so I’m going to probably nix that idea as well, especially with how much you absolutely hate any kind of shot.”

Chloe smiled slightly “Yeah, I don’t think that would work.”

Jack nodded and both Will and JJ laughed slightly knowing their daughter. “Okay, the next option is a patch or vaginal ring. Both would more than likely take care of what you want, but your age puts me off of both of those ideas. In some cases, patches can cause Deep Vein Clots, which makes me nervous so I don’t like prescribing them to anyone, much less a teenager. A ring would work, but it has a couple of downsides as well, it does slightly increase your risk of toxic shock syndrome, and a lot of women say it can cause irritation or discharge.”

JJ piped up “I want to vote that one as a no, I know they might not all be true but I’ve heard horror stories about those and I just don’t like it.”

Jack nodded once Chloe shrugged. “Okay, that leaves us with the last two types, and what I would have suggested for you guys to think about anyways. There’s an IUD, or a basic pill. A lot of pills have to have placebos though so you still get your period either one a month, or once every three months, however, there’s newer COCs, combination birth control pills, that you can take continuously. That’s what I would suggest in your case Chloe, is one called Amethyst. It was the first to be approved for continuous use and you can use it for 365 days without having to go off it, but even then it’s only once a year for a week so your body can handle the hormones. It’s a low dose pill with no placebos, however there is the obvious point that you have to remember to take a pill every day, without missing a day, and at generally the same time of day every day. I would set an alarm in your phone or make it a habit either right when you get up, or right when you go to bed. Go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, take the pill, that kind of thing. The basic risks with a COC are the same as any short term pill, a low percentage chance of stroke or blood clots.”

Chloe nodded slowly as she processed that, and Jack continued. “The other option is an IUD. The obvious upside is that it can stay in place for 3-5 years depending on the brand so there’s nothing for you to remember to do. If you do still get a period, if will for sure reduce your cramps and make the bleeding lighter. For you I would probably recommend Kyleena. It lasts up to five years, and if you would start having sex, you have a less than 1% chance of getting pregant with it, so it’s one of the best. Fair warning everything I’ve heard and seen from my patients says getting one put in is incredibly uncomfortable, but after about 2 days any cramping of bleeding should go away, and you case with Kyleena specifically, I would expect your period to completely stop within three months.”

A knock on Jack’s office door startled them and he stood up “You guys can talk it over and think about what you think would be best for Chloe, or if you have questions, I’ll go see what’s up and be back in a second.”

What he didn’t say was that he was pretty sure the knock was Henry, it just sounded like his knock, so he opened his door and slipped out, making sure his body blocked the doorway until he had it shut behind himself.

Henry furrowed a brow at Jack’s actions but Jack spoke before he could. “What’s up?”

“I was just looking for Chlo, Hank said he saw her looking for me in my office when she got here after school while I was in psych, and when she wasn’t in there and my parents weren’t answering if she’d gone home, I assumed she was in your office.”

Jack hesitated “She is, but we’re having a conversation right now.”

Henry raised his eyebrows “oh?”

Jack pursed his lips, “It’s private.”

“Are you serious Jack, I’m her sister, and you're not having a conversation right now if you’re out here and she’s in there.”

“Exactly, and if she doesn’t want me to tell you, I won’t. And she’s talking with other people in there right now.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it’s my sister and I want to know what the hell’s going on?”

“Your parents are in there too.”

“My…” Henry’s voice turned raspy in shock “Wait, this is like an actual appointment, isn’t it? She’s not just hanging out in your office, is she.”

Jack sighed “Yes, kinda, and no, she’s not. We are actually talking about something important.”

“Kinda?”

“It wasn’t planned, but she came by to talk to me after school, and I wanted your parents here as well.”

“What about?”

Jack raised his eyebrows at his best friend “You know I can’t tell you that unless she says I can.”

“She’s not pregnant though, right?” Jack could hear the anxiety in his voice.

“No, she’s not.”

“Okay, yeah, I get it.” Henry sighed. “I’ll be in my office when you guys are done if you could send Chloe to see me before they leave?”

Jack nodded “Yeah, of course.” Jack’s voice softened “You know if I thought you really needed to know because her health was in danger, I would tell you. I just want her to know she can trust me with anything, and I won’t break her confidence. And you know she thinks the world of you. I wouldn't be surprised if she tells you too, right after we’re done.”

“I know, I just always want to make sure she’s happy and healthy and okay.”

Jack nodded and once Henry walked away he walked back into his office, sitting back down at his desk.

Chloe spoke up one he did. “We’re going to try the pill first, just because I think having some object inside of me is kind of weird, even though mom suggested I do the IUD because she thinks I’ll forget to take it sometimes, so we’re going to try the pill for a few months and if I’m forgetting to take it while there’s still no consequences of me like getting pregnant or something, then we’re going to switch to the IUD so I don’t have to remember.”

Jack nodded “Okay, I think that’s a good plan, we’ll go with that. I’m going to trust you that you’re being honest about not having sex yet.”

“I am being honest." Chloe interjected, but Jack continued, “and not make you do any kind of exam or anything to write you a prescription, so you’re welcome, but…”

Chloe rolled her eyes and nodded “But if I start having sex I need to tell you or at least my parents because then I need regular check-ups. I remember what I promised you.”

Jack smiled and leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “Good girl.”

He turned back to his computer and typed out a prescription for Chloe before printing it out and signing it and handing it to JJ with a smirk “Since I’m pretty sure you’re the one filling it.”

JJ smiled “Yep, I would assume so. The Giant Eagle pharmacy down the street from our house right?”

Jack nodded “Yep, that’s what you have on her file so I just kept it there, and I put a note in your file, Chloe, to reassess in 4 or 5 months how you’re doing with remembering to take the pills, and we’ll go from there, okay? If you start having any really bad side effects, come talk to me and we’ll see about changing the prescription, and remember it takes a month for birth control to be effective and it could take a month or two for the pills to stop your period, but let me know if you have any questions, okay?”

Chloe nodded and Jack stood up “Then I think you guys are done with me, at least until Saturday when I’ll see you at dad’s last fall barbeque of the season.”

The three LaMontagnes laughed and as Chloe went to grab her backpack Jack said “Oh, and Chlo?”

They all turned to look at him “Henry wants you to go by his office before you leave, since he missed you when you first got here.”

“Oh is he the one who came to the door?”

Jack nodded “I didn’t tell him what we were talking about, but you can if you want to. I just didn’t know if you wanted him to know, but he’s probably going to be worried since your parents were in there too.”

Chloe shrugged “Eh, he’s always worried about me, but I’ll tell him, I don’t mind.”

Jack smiled “You’re choice, see you guys on Saturday.”

“Bye.”


	5. A First Time, Secrets, and Checkups

It was late February when Chloe got home from her boyfriend’s house one night just before her midnight curfew and both of her parents were cuddling on the living room sofa watching some movie when she walked into the living room and sat down on the chair next to the sofa to see what they were watching.

The both turned to look at her and to the seasoned profiler and detective, it took all of 30 seconds for them to realize what had happened that night. Her perfectly curled hair was frizzy and messy, her makeup was smudged slightly and her lipstick was practically gone, her clothes were just slightly out of place and wrinkled as though she’d tried too hard to make sure they looked the same and she had obviously not realized the love bite that was darkening in the hollow of her neck.

Though Will bristled slightly, JJ did her best to act calm and innocent. “Hey baby girl, how was your night with Matt?”

Chloe blushed and pretended to be very intrigued by the movie. “It was fine, we ate dinner, watched some netflix, just chilled a bit.”

Will grumbled under his breath and JJ barely stopped her laugh as she smiled at her daughter and said “Oh, nothing special then?”

Chloe paused and turned to look at her parents before sighing and flopping back against the couch. “How’d you guys know.”

JJ laughed “Life experience. Your hair’s a mess, your lipstick is gone, your clothes are slightly wrinkled, and you have a hickey on your neck.”

“I what?!”

Chloe yanked a mirror out of her purse and gasped as she saw her mom was right, and blushed bright red.

Will cleared his throat and awkwardly asked “He treated you right though? He was careful and he didn’t pressure you?”

Chloe blushed even brighter but nodded “Yeah, he treated me good dad, promise. He didn’t pressure me at all.”

Will nodded and stood up “I’m going to uh, go anywhere other than this conversation now.”

Chloe laughed and JJ slapped her husband as he walked by before turning to her daughter. “But you’re okay right?”

Chloe nodded “Yeah, and he used a condom and everything because…”

JJ sighed as she realized what she was saying, “When did you forget to take your pill?”

Chloe bit her lip “It was like a week ago, I swear I’m trying to remember, I just don’t always go to bed at the same time so sometimes I forget.”

JJ sighed “I know you think you’d rather just take the pill but I think you just forget too much, if you miss one day a month there’s a chance you could get pregnant hun.”

Chloe worried her lip a little more before saying “Okay, but just give it like another month or two, it’s only been three months and you were helping me remember for the first two.”

JJ sighed and nodded “If you promise you’ll always use a condom too, not just for that though, but also for STDs, okay?”

Chloe nodded, she knew just getting the IUD would be easier but having a little thing stuck in her vagina? Wouldn’t it feel so uncomfortable?

Chloe spoke up after a second “Mom?”

“Yeah, hun?”

“I know that Jack told me that if you have unprotected sex, you can get pregnant.”

JJ nodded wondering where this was going “And it wasn’t unprotected, I promise, but one of my friends told me a couple of weeks back that if you don’t uh, orgasm you can’t because the guy’s uh, stuff can’t go far enough, and I didn’t, like it still felt good, I just didn’t you know, have that seeing stars moment people talk about, so even if he hadn’t had a condom, technically, is that true?”

JJ looked at her daughter wide eyed before finally composing herself and saying “No, no, that is definitely not true. I would always listen to Jack over your friends there, he has medical licenses in this stuff. He knows what he’s talking about. If you have unprotected sex, you can still get pregnant, end of story.”

Chloe nodded “I kinda thought so, but, I-I just wanted to ask.”

JJ nodded “And I’m glad you did, and you can always ask me anything at all that you want to know, or I know you can ask Jack if it’s too weird to talk to your parents about, remember that, okay?”

“Yeah, I got it mom.”

JJ spoke again “You know you need to start actually going to the gynecologist now right?”

Chloe looked like she was about to retort something sarcastic so JJ cut her off “And hanging out in one’s office after school doesn’t count.”

Chloe pouted, “Dang it. That’s what I was going to say.”

JJ laughed “I know, I know you too well. Do you want me to ask Jack for suggestions for someone who would be good? I know you probably don’t want to go to the same one as your mom.”

Chloe shook her head “Yeah, no. That’s weird, and no. Jack told me back like last March when he, you know, gave me the whole talk and everything, that he would be willing to suggest some colleagues of his who were good and that he trusted, but I told him he was crazy. I would never trust some strange doctor with my, uh, everything, like no that’s so weird and uncomfortable.”

JJ furrowed her eyebrow for a minute and Chloe elaborated “I would rather just go to Jack. I know him and I trust him and I’ve talked to him about other stuff and he never brings it up when he sees us at get-togethers or anything so I know it wouldn’t be that weird and I don’t know, I guess, I already trust him, so that would be better.”

JJ nodded slowly “Okay, if that’s what you want that’s fine. I had just assumed since you guys act like you’re brother and sister and everything it might be uncomfortable for you. And since he’s a guy, at least for your first couple of appointments I had assumed you would want a girl.”

Chloe bit her lip “I can’t imagine it would be any more uncomfortable than a stranger poking around inside you. And as for a guy, I don’t know, I mean to me he’s just my over protective older brother Jack to me, just like Henry, like, he’s just him, it doesn’t matter to me that it’s a guy, but I think if I didn’t want it to be him, then yeah, I would rather it be a girl.”

JJ nodded “That’s fine, I just want you to be comfortable with this, and if you want to just see Jack, I’m fine with that.”

Chloe nodded and JJ pulled out her phone “I’m going to text him and see if he can set up an appointment for you tomorrow ofter school, okay?”

Chloe blinked “Oh, uh, right away? Okay, uh, yeah, I guess it’s fine.”

JJ smiled and kissed the top of her daughter’s head before the two got up and went their separate ways. 

When Chloe came down for breakfast the next day, JJ handed her a bowl of cereal to eat before school and said “Jack texted me back last night. He has a kind of busy day, but he said if you can just hang out until 6 or so after school, his last appointment is at 5:15 and he can slot you after that. I told him that should be fine since you hang out after school there all the time anyways… right?”

Chloe nodded “Yeah, sure, that’s fine, I’ll just find one of the guys to bug and help me with homework.”

JJ smiled “Do you want me to come? Or I can tell Henry you have an appointment and he can be there with you?”

Chloe bit her lip, “I-I don’t know.”

JJ gently ran a hand through her daughter’s hair. “I promise I’m not offended if you don’t want me there.”

Chloe nodded slightly “It’s just like, I feel like it’s kind of an invasive exam and I feel like I don’t want more people there than have to be.”

JJ smiled “That’s fine. I didn’t want my mom there either for my first appointment, and she made me go when I first got my period.”

Chloe looked at her mom wide eyed “How old were you?”

JJ laughed “12.”

Chloe blushed “Oh, I guess having to go at 16 isn’t quite so bad then.”

JJ smiled and kissed Chloe’s temple “No. And you know Jack. I had some old guy with a beard in his like 50s who talked about how ‘mature’ I was and he was also my mom’s OBGYN.”

Chloe made a face “Oh gross.”

JJ laughed “Yeah. Do you want me to come anyway and not come in the room or are you okay?”

Chloe bit her lip again but said “I think I’ll be fine, and if I need someone there I know Henry’ll be there.”

JJ nodded “Yeah, he will if you need him. So you’re going to tell him?”

JJ was surprised, she didn’t think her daughter would want both of her older protective brothers knowing since one already had to.

Chloe nodded “I mean, he’ll use his magical doctor skills and probably find out eventually anyways, so, oh well.”

JJ nodded “Okay, finish your breakfast and then Dad’s driving you to school today, I have to go in now, Hotch is looking at a case that we might have to go out on.”

Chloe laughed “See it’s a good thing I didn’t say you had to be there then, you might have a case.”

JJ smiled ruefully at her daughter “I would’ve stayed back if you needed me.”

“I know, but I’ll survive, and other people might not, go be a superhero.”

JJ smiled and kissed her daughter one last time “Okay, baby, I’ll see you later. Have a good day at school.”

“Bye mom.”

Chloe got through the school day painlessly, pushing her appointment out of her mind and just going through her school day like normal until she finally got out of school and walked down to the hospital and up to the 4th floor.

She ran into Hank and Kai first who were walking next to each other looking at a file, and by ran into, she literally slammed into him because she was looking at a snapchat on her phone from her best friend Zoey.

Hank caught her shoulder before she could fall backwards and she looked back up at them blushing “Sorry, I was walking and snapchatting.”

Hank snorted slightly while Kai rolled his eyes and joked “aren’t you supposed to be a smart teenager missy?”

Chloe just laughed and said “I am smart… I just get distracted and forget things, like where I am.”

Hank just shook his head but Kai frowned, “Speaking of forgetting things, why do I feel like you’re overdue for a checkup?”

Chloe shrugged “I don’t know, mom always schedules them.”

Kai pursed his lips and pulled her into his office they were right next to as Hank followed them in and Chloe leaned casually against the doorframe. She was pretty sure she was because her 16 year appointment had overlapped with a field trip and her mom had cancelled it and forgotten to reschedule it, but if no one noticed, who was she to bring it up.

Kai tapped away on his keyboard for a minute before looking up with a frown “Yeah, you are… by almost a year. You have your 15 year one, and then your 16 year one in May last year got cancelled and never rescheduled, which is weird because your mom is always on top of that stuff.”

Chloe pretended to have an epiphany “Oh, I think I remember what happened, My mom always schedules them at the end of May since my birthday’s at the beginning of May, but I think I had a field trip get scheduled for the same day and she must have never rescheduled it.”

Kai nodded slowly, frown still in place “Yeah, I’ll call her later.”

Chloe bit her lip “I think they were going on a case.”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, I think they did get called out, Mom, dad and I were supposed to have lunch with Grandpa, but he texted us this morning. I’ll just text her later then.”

Chloe nodded and slipped out of the room wandering down the hall to go find her brother who was doing paperwork in his office.

He looked up with a smile “Hey Chlo. How are you?”

“I’m fine, how was your day.”

“Good, not that busy, which I suppose is always a good thing, just a few of my regular patients. How was school?”

“Normal. Boring. I don’t actually have much homework for once though.”

Henry nodded “That’s good, you hanging out here this afternoon or just saying hi?”

“Hanging out. Mom got called out on a case, and I’m here until at least like 6.”

Henry frowned and looked up again after signing his name on something. “What’s at 6?”

Chloe bit her lip, might as well just throw it out there. “I have an appointment with Jack.”

Henry’s eyebrows shot up on his forehead. “C-can I ask for what?”

Chloe blushed and looked away “For my first check up.”

“Oh, so, so you…”

Chloe bit her lip again “Had sex? Yeah.”

Henry winced at the thought but nodded slightly “And you’re okay and everything though, right?”

Chloe nodded “Yeah, I’m fine, it’s all good, mom and Jack just said I had to, you know, have an actual check up once I lost my virginity since Jack didn't make me have an exam when he prescribed my birth control.”

Henry nodded remembering that “So mom’s not coming?”

“No, I told her I didn’t really want her to come with me for… that, so she ended up going on the case with them.”

Henry nodded “Okay, I know I’m not a girl but if you need me for anything I can be there.”

Chloe nodded “Yeah, that’s what I told mom but I trust Jack, it’ll be okay.”

Henry looked at his sister “You look guilty about something. What’s going on?’

Chloe pouted and looked at her lap “You promise you won’t get mad?”

Henry sighed and nodded and Chloe nervously continued “I had a field trip when I was supposed to have my 16 year doctors appointment so mom cancelled it and forgot to reschedule it and Kai just figured out that I was almost a year behind and now he’s going to call mom and she’s going to be all stressed out.”

Henry sighed out “Chloe. Really?”

Chloe pouted “You promised you wouldn’t be mad.”

Henry frowned and came around to lean on the front of his desk with his arms crossed “I’m not… mad. Disappointed and mildly annoyed, yes, but I’m not mad at you.”

Chloe looked down at her lap which is why she was surprised when Henry sat down next to her and pulled her into his side. “We’ll just schedule a new one, I promise it’s going to be fine. Why did you never tell her, you’ve never been scared of the doctor?”

Chloe shrugged “I’m not scared, I’m just not the biggest fan of the doctor.”

Henry laughed ”I don’t think anybody, even doctors, actually especially doctors, enjoy going to the doctor, but it’s important.”

“I know, how soon do you think Kai’s going to schedule it?”

Henry shrugged “I would imagine pretty soon, you’re always hanging around here anyways.”

Chloe pouted “Will I still have to have my 17-year one in May?”

Henry nodded “Yeah, if only just to get you back on track. Why don’t you just do your 16 year one today, you’re here until 6 anyways.”

Chloe looked at him incredulously “Exactly, I already have one appointment, why would I want a second one within a couple of hours?”

Henry shrugged “Get them done at once. I only have one more appointment today at 5 if you want me to ask Kai about just doing it now.”

Just then someone knocked on the door and Henry called them in.

Kai wandered in with Hank behind him, “Hey, you seen Chl..oe. Hey. I called your mom and she said if you were okay with her not being here we could just do your 16 year checkup now.”

Chloe looked up at Henry with wide eyes but he shrugged “Up to you?”

Chloe bit her lip but nodded “Fine yeah. Just get it all done at once.”

Kai frowned “Hmm?”

Henry clarified “She has an appointment with Jack later.”

Hank looked at her wide eyed “She, oh, uh, okay.”

Henry stood up and pulled Chloe off the sofa with him. “You want just Kai or what we usually do?”

Choe bit her lip “Everyone’s fine.”

“Okay, c’mon.”

The four made their way up to one of the free exam rooms and Chloe slowly stepped up to sit on the exam table while Kai sat down at the computer and logged in. She knew that they were good at what they did and especially with all three of them it would be quick, 15 or 20 minutes, but that didn’t mean she had to be excited for it. 

Hank leaned against the wall next to Kai and Henry sat behind her where he usually did, since he was her brother and he mostly worked with mental health and psych patients, he generally just let the guys do their thing and he was just there for moral support.

After a minute or two of Kai doing things on the computer, they asked Chloe to stand up and stand on the scale so they could get her height and weight, and give her the yearly lecture about eating healthy and making sure she was eating enough and she would respond with her yearly point that she did eat constantly, she just doesn’t gain like any fat. Then she sat back down on the exam table and this was where Henry actually helped them, he took her temperature and blood pressure and pulse and all that fun stuff, reading out numbers that apparently meant something to Kai who typed them in my chart. 

Then Kai got up and Hank sat down in one of the seats on the side where parents can sit and just waited for when it would be his job. Kai stepped forwards rubbing his stethoscope on his palm so it wouldn’t be so cold before walking around behind her and gently pressing it against her back and moving it around under her shirt as he instructed her to take deep breaths and listening to her lungs before moving around to the front and doing the same to listen to her heart and lungs from that side. He went to move it again but paused and frowned “Take another deep breath Chloe.”

She did, starting to worry something was actually wrong as he moved the stethoscope right around one area and frowned. Finally Henry spoke up “Kai? What’s going on?”

Kai just shook his head “Just give me a second.”

He kept focusing and listening for a minute before he stepped back and looked at Chloe with a furrowed eyebrow “Have you been sick at all lately?”

Chloe shook her head, biting her lip anxiously. Kai frowned “I feel like I hear some crackling.”

Hank stood up and stepped forwards, pulling his own stethoscope off his neck as Henry did the same from behind her, trying to see if he could hear from her back. Hank listened where Kai had and frowned as well. 

Chloe turned her head and pushed Hank back slightly with her left arm because she needed to cough, trying to clear her throat that now felt really dry before swallowing a couple times as she was getting more nervous.

“Sorry.”

Hank shrugged it off “Don’t worry, I’d rather you push me back than cough on me.”

Chloe smiled and turned back to them to allow Hank to go back to trying to listen to her chest but this time he stepped back with a relaxed look on his face as he looked at Kai. “The crackling is gone, I think she just had some mucus building up.”

Kai pursed his lips but stepped forward to listen again this time nodding as he stepped back and let out a relieved breath of air before wagging a joking finger at her with a bit of a smile and saying “Jesus girl, don’t scare me like that.”

Chloe laughed a little and gave an exaggerated “My sincerest apologies.”

“Mhm.”

Kai draped the stethoscope back around his neck and retrieved one of the tools from the wall to look in her ears and nose before grabbing another one to look at her eyes and then having her stick her tongue out so Kai could see into her throat.

He put it back on the wall and then stepped up in front of her and felt along her neck with his…”Ah! Jesus christ your hands are cold.”

The boys laughed and Kai smiled and kissed the top of her head in apology. “Sorry Chlo. Can you lay back for me so I can feel your stomach please.”

Henry hopped off the table so she could lay back and he gently pushed her shirt up exposing her stomach before palpating the different areas of her stomach as she tried not to squirm. Kai looked at her with a frown “Does that hurt?”

Chloe shook her head and giggled and Henry sighed. “No, her stomach’s just insanely ticklish.”

Understanding lit Kai’s face and he nodded before continuing to move around her stomach and then finally just barely putting the tips of his fingers under the waistband of her shorts and pushing down, before stepping back and allowing her to sit up.

He gave her a smile and said “Okay, everything looks good for me. Hank’s turn.”

Hank gave her a smile as he stood up and stepped to her before gently pushing against her bottom jaw, moving down to her collarbone, and then feeling the front of her shoulders before telling her to put her arms out and then push up and down against his hands and then turning his hands for her to push in and out against. He pulled his hands back with a little smile “You’re getting stronger, nice.”

Chloe smiled as Hank stepped back and took his stethoscope off his neck so he could do that thing where he hits her knees with it. He looked up at her “Close your eyes.”

“What, why?”

Hank laughed “Because I know you and you’re a little anticipator and you kick before I’ve even hit you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Close your eyes.”

Chloe obliged and relaxed and let him hit her in the knees, so he could check her reflexes before he stepped back and told her she could open her eyes and to stand up.

She hopped off the bed and landed in front of him making him laugh and shake his head when she nearly slipped in her socks but caught herself, before having her turn around.

He placed his hands on the back of her neck and ran them down her back pressing on her spine and then feeling her hips and looking at her posture before telling her to bend over and feeling how her spine moved as she did.

He let her stand back up and return to the table “Perfect as always girlie.”

Chloe smiled and Kai turned back to her. “One last thing.”

Chloe froze and her smile disappeared and Henry stepped close to her again, gently rubbing her shoulder and pulling her to lean on him. “It’s going to be okay babe.”

Kai nodded “2 shots this time, left or right arm?”

Chloe turned her head into Henry’s chest and whimpered “Left.”

Henry pressed her close against his chest as she could hear Kai getting the shot ready and then Hank came over to hold her arm still.

Kai walked over to her “Okay, deep breaths hun, just going to take a couple of seconds.”

Chloe whimpered to Henry’s chest who tried to gently soothe her before nodding to Kai to just do it.

“Okay, Chlo, 3. 2. Done.”

Chloe gasped as she felt the needle press into her arm and squeezed her eyes shut against them watering slightly.

Kai pulled it out just as quickly and quickly replaced it before Chloe could even register the switch and then he pulled that one out and threw it in the sharps container as well before coming back over to give her a hug. Chloe relaxed now that she was done and leaned into Kai’s hug. “I’m sorry baby girl, I hate seeing you cry.”

Chloe rubbed her face against his shoulder before standing up and murmuring “It’s okay.”

Kai smiled “Okay then. We’re all done. You want to know the good news?”

Chloe looked at him curiously. “You don’t have to get any shots at your 17 year appointment in a couple of months now. I just gave you the one you needed from your 16 and 17 year appointments so they’d be all done at once.”

Chloe looked at him with a broad smile as she rubbed at the band-aid on her arm slightly. She gave Hank a hug too before Henry guided her out of the room and back to his office where she curled up in one of his fluffy chairs to start on homework seeing as it was only 4:10. At around 4:50 Henry asked her to go hang in one of the other boys’ offices because he had an appointment in 10 minutes, so she grabbed her backpack and went to go hang out in Jack’s office where she usually hung out when she wasn’t in Henry’s, but it was locked so she moved on and went to try Hank’s office. He was just in there doing paperwork and said he was done with appointments so she could just hang out with him for however long she wanted so she sat on his couch and pulled out her laptop to write her vocab sentences on it since she’d finished her history homework and she just had those two for homework that night. She hadn’t been joking when she told Henry she had like no homework for once.

She finished her vocab easily and then moved on to playing games on her computer since it was 5:15. She played for a while before realizing it was 5:45 and actually started getting nervous about her appointment with Jack and ended up staring into space as she worried her lip and got lost in her thoughts.

She was snapped out of it by Hank waving a hand in front of her face… wait when had he walked over to her. “What, sorry?”

Hank frowned “I was trying to ask if you were okay, you were biting your lip and staring off into space for 10 minutes without moving.”

“Oh yeah, fine. Sorry.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Just nervous.”

Hank frowned and sat down on the couch next to her. “I may not be your brother but I think I’m a pretty good listener if you want to talk about it.”

Chloe smiled and nuzzled his shoulder “You kinda are my brother, I think of all four of you guys as my brothers.”

Hank smiled “I didn’t mean that, I know you’re practically my little sister, I just meant I don’t have a degree in listening to other people’s problems in life like your brother does.”

Chloe laughed “Oh, yeah. I’m just nervous about my appointment.”

Hank nodded “With Jack?”

Chloe nodded and shrugged “I don’t know why. I mean I do, just like, I trust him, and he’s my older brother basically and I know he would never hurt me, I guess it’s just like I’m worried about him judging me or I guess I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen and I hate not knowing stuff.”

Hank laughed slightly “I know, you always want to know everything 10 years ahead of time. And I know I’m not a girl so I can’t tell you exactly what you're going to feel or something like that, but I know Jack does this all the time, and he does know what he’s doing. It would honestly probably be hard to find a better qualified obgyn around here. I know you’re in good hands, and I know Jack would sooner stab himself than hurt you.”

Chloe couldn’t help but laugh slightly “That’s not dramatic at all.”

Hank smiled and pulled her into his side, gently rubbing a hand down her left side. “He’ll go as slow as you need and he’ll explain everything before he does it I’m sure. And you know that it’s important.”

Chloe nodded “I know, that’s why I’m not fighting it or anything, I just… it’s scary.”

“Yeah, I understand that. It’s not the easiest thing to expose yourself to someone, even if you do trust them and know they’re doing everything with your best interests in mind.”

Chloe quirked a brow at him, “You sound like you speak from experience?”

Hank blushed slightly but shrugged “I don’t like it either but it’s necessary. You think I like having to drop my pants in front of Jack?”

Chloe furrowed her eyebrows “Jack?”

Hank nodded and snorted “Yeah, he’s pretty adamant that being doctors doesn’t get us out of exams, and that if anything it means we have to be better about not skipping awkward exams like a prostate exam or whatever. I agree with him, except you know when it’s my turn for the exam but even then I know it’s important. Your brother on the other hand, there’s been a few times where Jack has to practically drag him into an exam room.”

Chloe nodded slowly “But you guys are guys?”

Hank nodded, “Oh, that’s what you meant, yeah, Jack does Andrology too.”

Chloe blinked “Oh, I knew he did Andrology or whatever, I just didn’t know exactly what it was.”

Hank nodded “Basically a man’s gynecologist.”

“Oh.”

Chloe sighed. “I know that people deal with this all the time, but it just seems so much worse when I’m thinking that I’m going to be the one on the exam table.”

“Yeah, it’s going to be okay though, and hey, maybe you can convince him to get you ice cream or something afterwards.”

Chloe giggled “That is a fantastic idea.”

Chloe stood up “I’m going to go to the bathroom in case Jack comes looking for me.”

Hank shook his head “Don’t yet. Since it’s your first appointment he’s probably going to want to do everything so he’ll need you to pee in a cup to test for STDs.”

Chloe frowned and sat back down, “But I’ve only ever, you know, had uh, done it once, and I’m on birth control and he had a condom.”

“Still, he’ll probably do it just in case. He’s going to want to look over everything just to set a thorough baseline.”

Chloe shuddered slightly “Yeah, not reassuring me.”

Hank laughed and pulled her back to him “You’ll be great. I’m sure of it.”

Just then there was a quick on the door and Hank called the person in. Jack’s 6’ 3” frame stepped through with a smile “Hey, Chlo. Your brother told me to check in here because he’d kicked you out of his office for an appointment.”

Chloe forced a smile slightly as she realized it was 6:10 and apparently time for her appointment.

Chloe stood up and Jack gave her another smile “Why don’t you go put your backpack in my office and then I’ll meet you in exam room five?”

Chloe swallowed roughly and nodded slightly. Hank stood up next to her and gave her an encouraging smile before bending down to whisper “It’s going to be fine.” and giving her a gentle kiss on the top of her head before she slipped by Jack to go to as he asked.

Jack gave Hank a concerned look once she was out of earshot. “She okay?”

Hank tilted his head slightly “She’ll be okay eventually. But for a girl who never admits to being nervous and jokes around to relax, and who just admitted to me that she is actually nervous, she’s really flat out terrified.”

Jack sighed “Okay, thanks.”

He turned to leave but Hank stopped him. “Jack, she knows you’re doing this for her best interests and that it’s important, and she’s not scared of you, she’s more scared of knowing, or not knowing rather, what’s going to happen. And you’ll be there for her, I know.”

Jack nodded “Okay, Henry said he’d stay for her just in case too.”

Hank smiled and nodded as Jack closed his office door and headed down the hallway.

He got to the exam room just as Chloe was and gave her an encouraging smile as he ushered her in. She sat on one of the chairs next to the desk first and he could see the way her body was vibrating slightly as she tried to contain her nerves. He gently rubbed her shoulder as he passed her to pull a gown and sheet out of the cupboard, as well as a cup out, before turning to face her.

“Do you need to go pee at all?”

Chloe nodded and Jack smiled and handed her the cup. “The bathroom’s right next door, if you can fill this up, then put it in the bag and put it in the little box on the ledge in there, the lab will get it for testing.”

Chloe nodded and took the cup into the restroom with her, doing as told, before washing her hands and returning to the exam room where Jack was waiting for her. He stood up from the computer and gave her a little smile as he walked to the door.

“Go ahead and take all of your clothes off and put this gown on, ties in the front and you can put the sheet over your lap if you’d like. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Chloe bit her lip and nodded as he slipped out of the room and shut the door behind himself.

Once the door was shut she pulled her shirt up and over her head, folding it and setting it on the chair she was just sitting on before taking off her bra and setting it on her shirt. She pushed her pants off, toeing off her shoes as she did in the same movement and then finally shakily pushing her underwear off and setting them between her shirt and pants on the chair. She pulled the gown on and wrapped it around herself tightly, tying the strings as tight as she could to keep it closed before sitting on the exam table and laying the sheet over her lap.

He came back in the room a minute later and gently rubbed her shoulder as he moved to sit on the rolly doctor stool.

He sat down and turned to face her giving her another relaxing smile “I know you’re probably really nervous, and that’s okay, but you know this is important, and I’m happy you’re trusting me with this, okay?”

She nodded and he continued. “I’m not going to lie, this is going to be pretty invasive and personal, but I’ll do everything I can to make it gentle and comfortable for you, and cause you the least stress possible. First we’re just going to talk for a little bit. So obviously based on your mom texting me last night and this appointment, you had sex?”

Chloe swallowed roughly and nodded.

“Okay, have you been remembering to take your birth control, and did you use a condom?”

Chloe blushed brightly “You know this wasn’t quite as bad when we were just sitting on the sofa casually.”

Jack gave her a rueful half smile, “I’m still the same person, it’s just a bit of a brighter environment, I want you to be honest, and comfortable talking to me.”

Chloe took a deep breath. “Right. Okay. Yes to the condom, and I’ve been trying to remember the birth control, but not perfectly. I swear I’m trying to remember though. Mom and I talked about it and she said we’ll give it another month or so and if I still can’t remember then it might be time to switch to something else.”

Jack nodded “That sounds like a good plan, but if you are still forgetting, it’s even more important to make sure that if you do have sex again in the near term, to make sure he wears a condom, okay?”

Chloe blushed and fidgeted on the table slightly but nodded. 

“Okay, what about your period, where are we with that?”

“Um, I had light, short ones for the first two months but I didn’t get one at all this month, which was good. Uh, even the two I had though both only lasted 3 or 4 days and were, on a comparative scale, completely painless.”

Jack smiled “Okay, that’s good. Have you experienced any unintentional weight loss or weight gain, and please god don’t tell me you’ve been trying to lose weight either.”

Chloe couldn’t help the snicker at the common point of discussion but shook her head “No.”

Jack nodded “Okay, obviously you’ve been sexually active recently, but multiple times? Just once? Do you think you’ve been exposed to any STDs I should particularly be looking for.”

Chloe blushed “Just once, last night, and no, we used a condom and he said he was clean and I obviously hadn’t done anything to get one yet either.”

“Okay, I wouldn’t always just trust a guy's word over that, they can lie, but with the condom as well, I’m more confident you’re fine then. Have you been experiencing any kind of dramatic mood swings, overly happy, sad, angry, more than you were before before starting the birth control. I know you're a teenager and mood swings are a thing, I just mean more drastically or obviously because of the birth control.”

Chloe laughed nervously but shook her head “No, I don’t think so at least.”

“Okay, I would tend to agree with that just from what I’ve seen but it still warrants asking. I want you to answer this honestly Chloe, and remember everything you tell me is completely confidential, I just need to know to take care of you in the best way possible.”

“Ookay.”

“Have you been participating in any kind of drinking, recreational drug use, legal or illegal, smoking, vaping, anything like that?”

Chloe blushed furiously but shook her head “Definite no to the smoking and vaping and drugs, alcohol, not really, just like the one or two sips mom or dad will give me of their wine sometimes to try it.”

Jack nodded “Okay, good. And I appreciate you telling me, but one or two sips every month isn’t going to hurt you…. Let’s see, okay, have you been having any kind of bleeding outside of when you would’ve expected, any unexplainable cramping or pain in your lower abdomen, anything like that you think I need to know about?”

Chloe shook her head. 

“Okay, do you know if there’s any history of cervical cancer or diseases relating to your reproductive health in your family?”

Chloe bit her lip and shook her head, “I don’t think so, not that I know about at least.”

Jack nodded, “Okay, I think we can go ahead and get started then?”

Chloe nervously shifted but nodded her agreement slightly and Jack stood up and walked over to her. “Okay, do you know what’s going to happen or do you want me to explain it all beforehand, or as I go in stages.”

Chloe shrugged “In stages, maybe?”

Jack nodded “Okay, so first I’m just going to do a basic breast exam to feel for lumps or inconsistencies, and then since it’s your first time, I’ll show you how to do a self check at home, which you should do about once a month, okay?”

Chloe swallowed dryly and nodded and Jack gave her a reassuring smile.

“Okay, if you can just lay back for me and then I’m going to untie the top of your gown.”

Chloe laid back on the table anxiously as Jack reached his large hands forward, easily untying the top string and pushing the flaps of her gown to the side, exposing her breasts to the cool air of the room, making her flush when they pebbled at the coldness. Jack on the other hand didn’t even seem to notice, but she supposed that when he did this all day, it really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him. He gently palpated her left breast with her arm up by her head before switching sides to do the same with her right breast. He then showed her how to feel around in a circle and make sure nothing felt different or concerning so that she could do it herself at home.

Once he was done, he recovered her chest with the gown and allowed her to re-tie the top strings, and he didn’t stop her when she quickly sat back up again, knowing she was trying to regain her composure and some sense of calmness.

“Okay, now we get to the less fun part, the pelvic exam. I want to have some kind of general baseline for everything, so what I’m going to do is an internal and external genital exam, and take a couple of swabs from inside your vaginal tissues to make sure everything’s okay, and then I’ll do a bimanual exam, and a recto-vaginal exam, and then you’ll be done, sound okay?”

Chloe nodded “Go slow though, please?”

Jack nodded “Of course.”

He pulled a metal try over to the end of her feet and pulled on a new pair of gloves before gently helping her lay back down, and spreading out the sheet over her legs. 

He pulled out the stirrups from inside the table “Okay, so I just need you to relax your legs now and I’m going to help you put them up in the stirrups. They’ll allow you to just relax your muscles but keep your legs where I need them, okay?”

Chloe nodded and took a deep breath, allowing Jack to gently maneuver her feet up onto the footrests, but she still kept her knees together and Jack sat down on his chair between her legs before gently nudging her knees apart. “Just relax and trust me Chlo, I promise it’s going to be okay, just let your knees fall to the side, perfect, just like that.”

Chloe took a couple of shaky breaths but she could feel her face heating up and getting uncomfortable.

She tried to relax as she could feel Jack’s finger’s gently touch her outer lips and spread them to look and feel her inner lips. She realized too late that she recognized the fuzzy, cloudy feeling that was taking over her brain and eyes as she could see the spots. She tried to take deep breaths and only managed to push herself up to her elbows and slur slightly “Jaack. I-I’m gonnna…” before her eyes fluttered shut and she never even registered her head dropping back to the table limply.

Jack looked up sharply at her words and then hearing her head hit the table, and cursed under his breath before gently setting her legs back flat on the table and making sure the sheet was still covering her before rushing up to her head and tapping the side of her face.

“Chlo? Chlo baby, talk to me. Can you hear me? Ah fuck.”

He quickly opened the door and thanking his lucky stars that he could see Henry in the breakroom with Hank and Kai, and wouldn’t have to leave her alone, and knowing there were no other patients because of the time, called loudly “Henry!”

Henry was up in a flash and quickly striding over to Jack who was looking back and forth between keeping an eye on Chloe, and Henry, as well as the other two doctors quickly following him in concern.

Henry reached Jack in record time “What’s going on, is Chloe okay?”

“She’s fine, she just passed out.”

“Oh shit, and she’d gone like 6 months this time too.”

Jack nodded “Right, get in here.”

Henry quickly followed his best friend into the room taking sight of his clammy looking sister and going into his big brother doctor mode. He quickly bent her legs up by her body so more blood would be going to her core and her head and then hopped up onto the bed behind her head so he could gently stroke her cheek and the top of her head as he spoke gently to her. He placed a hand on her forehead and looked up at Hank and Kai who’d followed him and Jack in and said “Can one of you guys go get a few bags of ice? She’s really hot.”

Hank nodded and rushed out of the room as Kai crossed over to her side and gently placed his fingers on her neck counting her pulse. 

He took them back off and said “Sky high” just as Hank came back in with three bags, so Henry put one under her neck and one under each armpit to start trying to cool her off faster. Hank pulled over the blood pressure machine from the corner of the room and wrapped it around one of her arms, setting it to continuous pulse, pulse ox, and bp monitoring.

Henry continued gently running a hand through her hair and talking to her gently as Kai looked at Jack with a teasing face and said “Damn, what did you do to her?”

Jack just rolled his eyes and gently rubbed one of her ankles as she groaned and her eyelids fluttered slightly and Henry spoke to her. “That’s good baby girl, let me see your blue eyes baby. You’re alright.”

Chloe groaned again and winced as she opened her eyes to the bright lights of the ceiling. She whimpered and Henry shifted forwards to put her head in his lap, gently brushing a hand down the side of her face. “You’re okay baby girl, what do you remember?”

Chloe blinked “Jack, Jack was… oh my god I passed out during…”

Henry couldn’t help but chuckle, “Yeah, you passed out during your exam and Jack ran out to get me. Do you know what happened, why you passed out because I thought you’d gone almost 6 months without fainting?”

Chloe pursed her lips in thought before groaning “yeah, probably.”

“Which is?”

“I forgot to each lunch today, and then when I got here I had my other appointment and then I was distracted with homework and being nervous to eat a snack so I haven’t eaten since a bowl of cereal at breakfast, and then I was feeling really hot and anxious and I think I just got overheated embarrassment.”

Henry sighed “Chlo, you know you can’t not eat like that.”

Chloe sighed “I know, I just had a big test in math right after lunch that I was stressed out studying for.”

“I get it, but you gotta be careful Chlo, what if you passed out and you had been walking down a flight of stairs, you know how to usually prevent it from happening. You gotta take care of yourself.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

Henry bent down to kiss her forehead “You don’t need to be sorry, I know you didn’t try to, you just worried me. I love you Chlo.”

“I love you too…. So…” She turned to look at Jack “I suppose there’s no chance you just finished everything while I was unconscious?”

Jack smiled and shook his head “Sorry, no. But we can reschedule this for another day if you’re still feeling out of it.”

Chloe shook her head “Just do it, I’m already laying here.”

“If you’re sure?”

Chloe nodded so Jack turned to look at the boys “Okay, all you people out.”

Chloe spoke up “Actually, is it okay if Henry stays here?”

Jack nodded at her “Whatever you want. In that case, Kai and Hank, out, Henry you can stay.”

Kai and Hank blew Chloe kisses before ducking out the door and shutting it behind them.

Jack looked at Chloe “You want Henry to stay where he is or?”

“Here’s good, he’s a nice little pillow.”

Henry pretended to be offended while Jack laughed a little bit. 

“Okay, you remember what was happening?”

Chloe nodded so Jack sat back down and gently placed her feet back up on the stirrups, making sure the drape sheet was still covering her from the waist down. He went back to gently probing and feeling the outside of her genitals before retrieving the metal speculum and coating it with lube saying, “Okay, Chloe, I’m just going to gently insert this into your vagina so I can see inside you better and take a couple swabs. It might be a little cold and uncomfortable but I need you to try and stay still, and tell me if anything hurts, okay?”

Chloe nodded and Henry kept his gaze deliberately focused on her face as he gently smoothed her hair. Even then though, he could tell when Jack started inserting it by how Chloe flinched and tensed. Jack gently ran a hand up and down her thigh, “Deep breaths Chlo, try and relax, it will help it not feel so uncomfortable, just try and relax your muscles.”

Chloe nodded and did as she was told, feeling Jack continue inserting it all the way and then as he slowly clicked it open, and she started squirming slightly and whimpered at the uncomfortable, foreign feeling.

Jack set a heavy hand on her hip pressing down just slightly to stop her moving, “Sh, sh, sh, I know Chlo, I know it’s not comfortable but you need to hold still for me, please lady bug?”

Chloe turned to press her face into where Henry’s calf was crossed to the side of her head and under her but nodded.

“Okay, good, just a little bit further. Okay.”

Chloe bit her lip and nuzzled Henry’s leg slightly as she felt Jack’s fingers inside of her and then she whimpered slightly and pinched her eyes shut at a sharp scratch inside of her. Jack’s hand came back up to rub at her thigh “I know, I know, I’m sorry.”

Finally a minute later she felt him closing the speculum back up.”Okay, breathe out, Chloe?”

Chloe closed her eyes and breathed out deeply and she felt him sliding the speculum out and took another breath of relief.

He set it on his little table and sat up to look at her. “Okay, done with that part. Next I’m just going to insert two fingers into your vagina and then place my other hand on top of your lower abdomen, okay?”

Chloe nodded and felt him place one cool finger into her first and move it around slightly before feeling him put a second one beside it, stretching her slightly uncomfortably just like the speculum had but she bit her lip and managed to keep from squirming too much. Henry gently ran this hand down the side of her face and through her blonde curls whispering “You’re doing great baby girl, you’re okay.”

She felt Jack moving his fingers and his other hand moving around on top of her abdomen pressing down at various things before he removed his hands and said “Okay, perfect, one last thing, you doing okay?”   
Chloe nodded, watching closely as he stood up and took off his gloves, washing his hands before putting on a new pair of gloves and walking back over to her. 

“Okay, the last thing we’re going to do is a recto-vaginal exam, so I’m going to put two fingers into your rectum and one in your vagina, with my other hand back on top of your abdomen, sound good?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, uh, yeah.”

Jack just gently rubbed her knee as he sat down and lubed his fingers. She gasped slightly at the odd feeling of his first finger sliding into her and wiggling a little bit before he said “Okay, and bear down for me like you’re trying to go to the bathroom.”

She did and then felt his second finger slowly pushing in next to the first and stretching her open a little bit as he stretched them apart from each other and she couldn’t help the low noise from the back of her throat as he opened her up back there.

Henry gently cupped her face “Okay?”

Chloe nodded as she flushed slightly as she felt Jack’s finger slide back into her vagina as his other hand pressed on her lower abdomen again. Finally he pulled his hands back and pulled the wet gloves off and gently helped her lay her legs back down so they dangled over the edge of the table and resituated the sheet so she was still covered as Henry gently pushed her up to help her sit back up.

Jack gave Henry a look and he hopped off the table kissing the side of her head and saying “Since you’re done with the exam part, I’m going to go back outside if you’re okay with that?”

Chloe nodded so Henry slipped outside and Jack stood up. “I’m going to step out so you can get redressed, and then we’ll finish chatting, okay?”

Chloe nodded and quickly threw her clothes back on once the door was shut and took a seat back on one of the chairs just as Jack came back in.

Chloe shifted slightly on the chair as he came and sat on his chair in front of the desk before turning to give her a comforting smile.

“Okay, Chlo. So I didn’t see anything at all concerning. You were perfect as I expected. Everything feels okay?”

Chloe blushed slightly but nodded.

Jack smiled “Okay, good. My last little lecture piece is to trust your instincts, especially if you stay sexually active. If you think something’s wrong, come talk to me about it, and you’re lucky enough you don’t even have to make an appointment, you just hang out with me so much that we’re chill. It might be nothing, or it might be something, but it’s better for it to be nothing than for you to ignore something important, okay?”

Chloe nodded, “Okay.”

Jack smiled “Alright, do you have any more questions for me? At least at the moment?”

Chloe shook her head so Jack stood up with a smile, and once she had stood up as well, stepped up closer to her. “Okay, then I think we’re all done. Not  _ too _ painful was it?”

Chloe blushed but shook her head slightly and Jack stepped up closer to her, opening up his arms. “Good, then I need a hug from my favorite little sister to make sure you're not upset or annoyed with me now.”

Chloe smiled and opened her arms up as well, stepping into Jack’s large, comforting embrace as she wrapped her arms around his back just as tightly. “Even if I didn’t like it, I still love you Jack, I couldn’t ever stay upset or annoyed with you for long.”

Jack smiled and rested his chin on her head “Thank you babe, I love you too.”


	6. Headaches, Nightmares, Changes

It was just under two months later in the middle of April, when JJ sat down with her daughter one evening.

“So I wanted to check in with you about the birth control pills and how it’s going with remembering to take them and all that. Are you thinking you want to stay with the pills or do you think switching to the IUD would be a better idea?”

Chloe sighed and fidgeted slightly. “As much as I’m not sure I’m a fan of the IUD option, I think it’s probably better for me, at least for a while. I’m doing my best to remember, but I’m still forgetting sometimes, too often, and I know that’s not a good thing, because I don’t want to get pregnant or anything like that.”

JJ agreed, but she could tell her daughter still wasn’t a really big fan of the idea.

“Look, let’s talk it over, why do you still not like the idea?”

Chloe bit her lip and sighed “I know you can’t trust everything you read on the internet, but a while back I was actually looking things up about getting one, and I read a lot of things that say getting one put in is really painful, and I don’t know, I guess that scares me. And then they said getting it out is kinda painful too. Plus like having something just chilling in your vagina sounds really uncomfortable to me, and if I would like, uh, go have, uh sex, wouldn’t the guy be able to feel it, and wouldn’t that be weird? I don’t know, on top of that I saw some stuff that said it could like fall out, or at least partially fall out, and I don’t know, plus there are more risks with being on one than just the pill.”

JJ nodded “Okay, well I would agree that sometimes the internet might make you worry over nothing, but I do think all of those things are valid questions or concerns to bring up with Jack. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned it, but I did have one, well a couple, for a while, so I can answer some of that with at least my opinion, starting with the whole having something in your vagina. The IUD goes into your uterus, not your vagina, and as far as I know your uh, partner, won’t be able to feel it. Personally, I couldn’t even feel it after it had been in for about a week. As to getting it put in… I’m not going to lie here, it does hurt, but after a few days any bleeding or cramping was gone. Taking it out is uncomfortable but not painful exactly, but if you get the new one put in right at the same time, then you’ll still have the cramping to deal with. I don’t know if it was just me, or if there’s newer pain killers they can give you, or ways to make it less uncomfortable, but I will say that for me at least, the week of uncomfortableness or cramping was worth it because then you can just forget about it for the next 3 years, or I think Jack said the one he would suggest for you was 5 years, so even longer. But again, we’ll talk to Jack about it, see what he says, okay?”

Chloe nodded slightly anxiously.

JJ kissed the side of her temple “It’ll be okay, but I do want to talk to Jack about this, I think you’re just so busy that it’s hard to remember to take the pills, and I’m not criticising, that’s why I went on an IUD when I joined the FBI, but still, I just want you to be safe.”

“Okay, mom.”

JJ thought for a minute. “Tomorrow’s a friday so you have school, do you want to talk to Jack tomorrow?”

Chloe sighed “Yeah, sure.”

“Do you want me to come too, or do you think you can just talk to him?”

Chloe hesitated “I can just talk to him, and then if he wants you too, then you can just come after work.”

JJ nodded “Alright, sounds good.”

The next day at school, Chloe was definitely a bit anxious but she just tried to push those feelings down as she made her way down the familiar path to the hospital and up to the boys’ floor. 

A quick check with the boys’ receptionist at the front desk told her that Kai was doing an appendectomy on a 8 year old girl, Hank was in the ER with a car crash victim, and Henry had just gotten paged down to the ER for a woman suffering delusions, and Jack was in his office between appointments.

Chloe thanked her and made her way back to Jack’s office, knocking on the door when it was closed.

Beckoned by a quietly groaned “Mmm?”

She pushed the door open, taking in the dark doom and Jack laying on the sofa with a pillow over his face, she quickly shut the door, making sure to keep it quiet, and then blinking for a minute to let her eyes adjust to the near pitch black room.

Finally, when she was pretty sure she could make it to the side of the sofa and not trip on something and fall on her face she gently crossed over next to him, flinching slightly at the trashcan next to his head that he’d obviously thrown up a couple of times and the way his body was trembling slightly, she could tell within 5 seconds he had one of his really, really bad migraines.

She knelt down next to him and gently touched his shoulder, whispering as quietly as she possibly could “The door’s closed now.”

Jack slowly took the pillow off of his face. Just the small movement had his face turning paleish green and his cheeks bubbling as he tried not to throw up. 

She’d been around him for his migraines enough to know the basics of what to do, and how to try and help, but she didn’t know how long he’d been lying here.

“Can I help you?”

Jack mumbled out with a slight slur, “Gina… cancel appooinmensss... get one of the boysss.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

Chloe slipped out as quickly and quietly as she possibly could, blinking in the bright lights as she raced to the front desk “Gina, can you cancel all of Jack’s appointments for the rest of the day, just tell them he’s gotten sick or something.”

The receptionist blinked but could hear the urgency in the girl’s voice and was already moving to the computer even as she asked “Why?”

“He has one of the worst migraines I’ve seen him with in a while, shaking, throwing up, the works.”

Gina nodded shortly “I got the patients, you go help him.”

Chloe nodded “Also, please tell me one of the boys are back up here?”

Gina shook her head despondently “No, sorry.”

“Crap, when the first one gets back, send them to his office, can you page any of them? See where they are?”

Gina bit her lip “I can try Dr. Struthers. Dr. Morgan just went into surgery, he can’t leave the trauma victim, and if Dr. LaMontagne is in the middle of talking down a psych patient, I can’t interrupt him.”

Chloe nodded “Please do, and if he can, tell him to come into the room silently.”

Chloe ran back to Jack’s room, slipping back in almost silently and once more adjusting to the dark before kneeling by Jack. “Your appointments are cancelled but the boys are all in the middle of surgery or emergencies.”

Jack tried to nod slightly but ended up reaching for the trashcan as the movement tipped his nausea past where he could hold it back.

Chloe thanked god she had a strong stomach and no problem with blood or puke or anything because she just sat there, helping his shaky hands hold the trash can and gently rubbing his back until he sat back with a low groan and she could see the tears dripping slowly from the corners of his eyes.

She finally thought of something and whispered “Have you given yourself one of your shots?”

Jack groaned slightly and held out one hand slowly as he mumbled “Tried. Too shaky.”

He pointed to the coffee table and she could see finally that the black case with his shots in it was open and there was an open wipe and an uncapped shot that had fallen to the floor next to it. She looked at his stomach where his shirt had twisted up slightly as he threw up and realized he had tried, but his hands were shaking too much and the needle had cut a small line in his lower abdomen.

“Can someone give one to you?”

She heard Jack moan out in pain and could see the silent tears dripping as he seemed to be trembling worse and he gasped out in the quietest whisper she’d ever heard.

“Chlo. Please help.”

She lowered her voice beneath a whisper so that it was barely making even audible noises but he heard her “I’m sorry Jack, I’m so sorry, I don’t know how to help.”

“Need, shot, please.”

His voice was a gasping, watery, barely audible sound that made her heart clench at the pain.

She could see his body trembling, feel it beneath her hand as his arms curled over his face as she whispered out in shock. “Jack, I don’t know how to give you the shot, I might hurt you.”

“Couldn’t...hurt...more. Please, help, chlo, help.”

Chloe could feel her own stomach turning in nerves but she couldn’t just sit here while Jack went through hell. 

“Okay, how do I do it?”

Jack gasped and turned his head to throw up again, only stomach acid this time as he had nothing left in his stomach as he tried to turn himself onto his back. His hand limply fell to next to his naval on the opposite side of the scratch.

He tried to gasp out instructions but only certain words were clear “opposite of scratch...wipe...new shot...push a little out...like tv...no air...push it in….mmmm chlo it hurts please....”

Chloe knew he hadn’t given her all of the directions yet but she pushed his shirt up more, hoping, praying she was right in guessing he had meant to give the shot opposite his belly button from where he tried to give himself a shot earlier. She grabbed a new wipe to gently wipe his stomach and whispered “here?”

“Yeahhhuhgng.”

She set the wipe aside and got a new shot, uncapping it and pushing it until only the tiniest drop bubbled out. She had to admit even half out of it, his ‘like tv’ had actually helped her understand.

“Okay? Just give it to you?”

“Ngnn. Push harder… than you think... through skin… into muscle.”

“Okay.”

She took a deep breath and promised herself she was doing this to help and that he wanted… no needed, her to do this and poked it into his stomach unsure how far to push it in until she was almost at the end of the needle and having to bite her lip to stop from saying anything when he grunted softly, and then she pushed the plunger down emptying all of the medicine into his stomach and pulling the needle out, as he winced slightly but she wasn’t sure if that was because of her or the migraine.

She threw the wipes away and set the shot after putting the cap back on it and then did the same with the one that had fallen to the floor, she at least knew enough from spending so much time with doctors not to throw them in the regular trash. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to put a band-aid over where she’d stabbed him, but it didn’t seem to be bleeding, so maybe not? 

She looked at where he’d accidentally cut himself with the needle but that seemed to have stopped bleeding on its own as well so she gently pulled his shirt back down before gently rubbing his shoulder and stepping back. He was sweating and shaking still, and moaning occasionally, but he seemed to already be trembling a little less so she sat on one of the chairs next to the couch, watching him with a concerned glance until he finally slipped into blessed sleep, still shaking and whimpering occasionally, but for the most part his features seemed to have relaxed. She got up and took the trash bag out of the can, replacing the bag and setting the bag with trash and throw up on the ground after tying it up. She didn’t want to risk opening the door and waking him up or causing him more pain.

She went to the other side of his office, sinking down to the ground and pulling her knees up to her chest, burying her face in her arms as her body shook with silent, anxiety driven sobs. She was scared for him, about the kind of pain he was in, scared if she’d done something wrong and she’d accidentally hurt him. She’d known he got migraines, and she knew they were painful, but Jack, he always seemed invincible, he never cried, even when he and Henry had been trying to move a sofa into their house and they’d dropped it on his foot, a couple of curses sure, but he’d shaken it off, but ice on it, and that had been that, but to see the tears pouring down of his face. The way he couldn’t even get full sentences out without crying and shaking and whimpering in pain, she was scared, she just wanted him to wake up and open his eyes and be okay. In theory, she’d seen him with a migraine before, but obviously that was after the medicine, because that had been nothing but a minor headache compared to that. She didn’t know if he was still in pain, if he was okay, she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t believe she’d actually just given him a shot! Chloe LaMontagne, the person who was kinda sorta terrified of needles, and still had to practically sit on her brother’s lap and have her arm held to get one, just gave him one. What if she’d hurt him?!

She sniffled slightly so she wouldn’t wake him up but jumped when his quiet whisper called, “Chlo?”

She got up quickly and went over to him, crouching down and speaking quietly “Are you okay? Do you need something?”

Jack moaned “Shhhh. Lay here.”

She spoke almost silently this time. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She noticed his eyes were still firmly shut, but his voice wasn’t quite so watery anymore “S’okay. Don’t cry. M’okay. Lay here, jus’ don’ touch m’ head.”

Chloe hated that he’d obviously heard her cry, it must have been painful based on the way he reacted to even her whispering. She didn’t want to fight so she slipped off her tennis shoes and laid on her side, slightly on top of him but careful to keep most of her weight off of him and on her leg that was on the sofa. “Okay. shhh, go back to sleep.”

Jack let out a pained noise that sounded generally like “mmmng,” before gently wrapping his arms around her body and she heard his breaths even out slightly from their slight hitching as he breathed earlier, and allowed her own eyes to flutter shut to the reassuring sound of his heartbeat and her nose breathing in his scent that was so uniquely, perfectly, lovingly, safely, comfortingly, him, her last conscious thought that if she was this exhausted from just watching him, she couldn’t imagine how he felt.

It was 15 minutes later that Kai was racing out of the elevator, having finished his surgery and grabbed his phone and pager from the nurse who’d first read him the message that Jack had a bad migraine and needed help from Gina. He’d just started the last stages of his little girl’s appendectomy, so the second he had finished and she was closed up, he’d been bolting for the elevator, knowing if Jack had apparently told her to get one of them, it was a bad one.

He stopped in front of her desk “I was in the middle of surgery, where’s Jack?”

Gina answered equally quickly “His office, Chloe’s with him but she hasn’t come back out since she asked me to try and get one of you guys. She said it looked really bad, one of the worst, and she said to tell you to go in silently, not that you didn’t already know that but she was worried.”

Kai nodded, “Right, of course.”

He raced down the hallway, taking just a second to catch his breath so he wouldn’t be breathing hard and potentially making Jack feel like someone was pouring acid on his brain before just barely opening the door, slipping inside, and shutting it silently behind him, blinking as he tried to adjust his eyes to the pitch black of the room. 

Slowly his eyes focused on the couch and he could see Jack sleeping with Chloe next to him, just barely on top of him. He could hear Jack’s uneven breathing and see his face contorted in a grimace, showing he was still in pain even in sleep.

His eyes fell to the trash bag on the floor, the open case of Jack’s shots on the table and the two shots on the table. His thoughts fell to surprise, Jack had already needed a second dose and he was still in pain?

Kai reached down to pick the two shots up, frowning as he saw the second one. The first one looked like it had been given fine, the plunger was all the way in and it was empty. The other one though, it was still partially full and the plunger was only half in… like Jack had tried to give it to himself but was shaking too much.

Based on when he’d gotten the page, and how long it had taken him to come down from the OR floor after getting it, he hoped it had been 30 minutes since the first dose. He knew how Jack’s meds worked and careful not to wake either sleeping person, gently slid Jack’s shirt up above his belly button.

He looked at the cut with a frown and took the cap off the partial shot, nodding slightly as he saw the blood on the tip and tried to piece together what had probably happened, based on that, and that Jack’s pants were wet in a small spot beneath the cut. Jack had probably tried to give himself that one first, but his hands were shaking too much, and as he tried to push the shot in but had shaken and cut himself slightly, and he’d depressed the plunger slightly, spilling medicine onto his pants. He got a second one and probably went to the other side, and it looked like he successfully gave himself medicine that time based on the fact that he was asleep now. He got another new shot from the case, gently wiping Jack’s skin a half inch or so above the cut and easily gave him the second round of medicine, noting Jack groaned slightly but didn’t fight it or flinch hardly at all.

He set that shot next to the other two so if he woke up he would probably be able to figure out that he’d gotten a second one, but just in case Kai scribbled out a note on a blank on his prescription pad in his pocket and set it next to them. He wasn’t quite sure where Chloe came in, but she’d probably walked in on him in the middle of it. He couldn’t help himself, despite knowing the bad circumstances that probably got them in the position, he took a step back and snapped a couple of photos of the two of them sleeping with a little smile on his face, hey, they were adorable. He put a glove on and grabbed the trash bag that now that he was thinking about it, Chloe had probably replaced and making sure there was nothing else, silently and quickly slipped back out of the room, taking the bag to the biohazard trash and dropping the bag now before throwing his glove away as well and replacing it with a new clean one in his pocket so he always had a set on him.

He made his way back up to Gina’s desk who was watching him worriedly. He gave her a reassuring smile. “He’ll be okay, I gave him a second dose of medicine because he was still in pain, but he and Chloe are both asleep. I took a picture because well, it was adorable, but if Henry or Hank come looking for him, tell them not to go in his office. He needs to sleep, especially after a bad one.”

Gine smiled at him slightly and nodded as she relaxed. She gave him a sheepish smile and said “Can I see the picture?”

Kai smiled “Of course.”

He pulled the phone out and pulled it up, and she ‘aww’ed at it. “That’s so cute.”

Kai nodded and laughed “Yeah. Alright, I’ll be in my office if anyone needs anything.”

“Sounds good.”

Jack woke up first, just over an hour and a half later and was overjoyed to find all that remained of his headache was a dull pressure, nothing like the excruciating pain from when he fell asleep. He went to rub his eyes and was confused that his left one was numb… and had a heavy weight on it. He tentatively opened his eyes, happy when the stabbing pain did not return, and blinked to focus on Chloe laying on him, and he searched through his memory to try and find snippets of what had happened and why there were dried tears tracks on her face. He knew he’d had a migraine and when he has a particularly bad one, he often loses chunks of time in his memory. He remembered the pain being excruciating, and trying to give himself a shot but his arms were trembling and he cut himself with the needle and it slipped out of his grip to the floor. He remembered curling up after that in pain. 

The next thing he remembered was Chloe helping him hold the trash can as he threw up for the millionth time, but he couldn’t remember her getting there. He remembered begging and pleading with her to help him and to give him a shot…. Wait, he did what?! He remembered watching her through blurry, black spotted vision trying to tell her how to do it. Then he remembered waking up… wait when did he fall asleep, or unconscious more likely based on the black spots before that…. And seeing Chloe with her head on her knees and her crying slightly… ah that would explain it, but why? He remembered knowing it was quiet but he could hear her sniffling occasionally, and he remembered calling her over to him quietly and nagging her to lay down with him, and he remembered feeling her try to keep her weight off of him until he pulled her onto his chest and then he fell asleep, and obviously she had too.

He tried to shift so he could turn his head without waking her, but when he tried to reach to grab the note on the coffee table she stirred slightly and he gently rubbed her back as she woke up, already back in his protective older brother role.

She went to push herself up and nearly fell off the sofa, but he reached out and rewrapped an arm around her fast enough to catch her.

“Hey, careful Chlo.”

She blinked and looked up as she realized he was looking down at her and smiled as she saw his intense brown eyes looking down at her. She made sure to speak quietly “Hey. How’s your head?”

Jack smiled and responded at just slightly lower than a normal tone “Better, just a dull ache, practically nothing now in comparison.”

Chloe nodded and smiled at his use of a more regular tone of voice. “That’s good.”

She shifted her body up slightly to nuzzle into his shoulder “I was so scared. You were in so much pain and I didn’t know how to help.”

Jack frowned just slightly “You did help, once you gave me the shot, that was like magic.”

Chloe nodded and dropped her voice just slightly again “I can’t believe I actually gave you a shot. I was so scared I was going to hurt you.”

Jack laughed slightly “Aww, you could never hurt me babe, I’m glad you figured out my garbled trying to tell you what to do.”

Chloe nodded slightly, inhaling his comforting scent.

Jack finally was able to grab the paper on the coffee table as he pulled his arm free from where it was pinned under her and said “ahhh, that makes so much more sense.”

“What?”

“Kai came in at some point while we were asleep and said I still looked like I was in pain so he gave me a second shot once he figured out the first one on the table hadn’t been used. I was confused that just the one shot had been enough, that was one of the worst migraines I’ve had in awhile.”

“Ohhh. What time is it?”

“A bit before six, we should probably get up.”

Chloe tilted her head mischievously “Your head’s better though right?”

Jack squinted at her for a brief second before saying “Yeah, mostly?”

Chloe let her head fall back onto his chest. “Then I’m tired and we should stay here.”

Jack laughed slightly and she pouted as his chest bounced her as she tried to snuggle her head back into the hollow of his neck. “C’mon ladybug, up.”

Chloe groaned dramatically but finally pushed herself up and off the couch and into standing position. Jack slowly followed her making sure his head was still feeling fine and when it was, went over to his desk to put some papers and his laptop in his backpack as Chloe grabbed hers and then the two slowly entered the hallway, blinking in the obscenely bright light outside of their dark bubble. Henry was talking to Gina as they walked out and smiled when he saw them. “Well if it isn’t the two sleeping beauties. Feeling much better I take it Jack?”

Jack smiled “Yeah, meds and a nap are an amazing thing. Since Gina cancelled my appointments I’m just going to take Chloe home.”

Chloe perked up at her idea “Oh, can I come over?” 

Henry blinked “For dinner? Sure, as long as mom’s okay with it.”

Chloe nodded and pulled out her phone quickly dialling her mom.

“Hello?”

“Hi mom.”

“Hey Chloe. How’d your conversation go? Do you want me to come up there?”

Chloe bit her lip and tried to subtly step away from the boys. “Uhm, it didn’t happen, I never really had the chance to ask him.”

She could practically hear her mother’s frown “How come? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, now, but when I got here Jack was having a migraine and then I was trying to help take care of him because all of the boys were busy and then we both fell asleep and we just woke up. I’ll ask him another time, in like a day or two, promise.”

JJ sighed “Alright, that’s fine. Were you just calling to update me or did you need something?”

“Can I go over to Henry and Jack’s house for dinner?”

“Uh, yeah, if they’re okay with it. I’m still at the office so we would have been eating pretty late anyways.”

“Alright, thanks, love you mom.”

“Bye Chlo. Love you too.”

Chloe turned around and stepped back over to the boys “I can come over for dinner cuz’ mom’s still at the office so…”

Henry nodded “Alright, then you two get out of here, I’ll be about 5 minutes behind you.”

Chloe smiled and nodded.

She wrapped her arm tightly around Jack’s bigger one and bent his head down to kiss the top of her head as they started walking. “I really am fine, I promise.”

Chloe sighed “I know, I’ve just never seen you with one so bad before, and I was scared, and anxious, and I was worried you were going to hurt yourself, or worse anyways, or something was going to happen and I didn’t know how to help you so…. I guess I’m just exercising my annoying little sister right to be really clingy sometimes.”

Jack smiled and pulled her chest against his as they stepped into the elevator. “It’s fine, I think it’s kind of cute anyways, and you’re not thaaaaat annoying, just sometimes.”

He teased with a little smile at the end and she swatted his chest playfully before they stepped off the elevator and into the parking garage.

The two got home and Jack started dinner with Chloe helping him, the two teasing each other and chatting amiably until Henry got home about ten minutes later and joined in on the bantering.

They settled down to eat quickly having decided on basic BLTs for dinner and both Henry and Jack noticed Chloe seeming to be hovering around Jack slightly, but didn’t say anything, figuring it was just a temporary anxiety from seeing Jack like that, and that she would be fine in a while. The three all moved into the living room to watch some TV, and Chloe curled up between her older brothers, relaxed and happy finally. It was just past 11 when Chloe started nodding off and Jack and Henry both noticed. Henry signed something out of Chloe’s view and when Jack nodded, got up, grabbing his phone to make a call quietly.

When he got back in Chloe was still fighting sleep, but more firmly attached to Jack since he’d left. He gently rubbed her shoulder and when she sat up to blink at him. He gave her a gentle smile and said “Mom says you can spend the night if you want, Chlo.”

Chloe nodded but made no move to get up and Henry smiled as Jack nudged her back “I think that means that since you’re falling asleep on me you might want to go to your bedroom?”

Chloe didn’t have a bedroom of her own exactly, it was technically a guest room, but she had some clothes from when she’d spent the night before in a couple of drawers, and it was always the one she stayed in when she spent the night, or was young and taking a nap while over at their house.

Chloe shrugged and Henry bent down and started tickling her, making her squeal and finally cry out, “Okay, okay, stop!”

Henry stood back up and Chloe begrudgingly slid off of the couch and back into the hallway with the bedrooms. She jerked slightly when she saw Henry’s hand push the door open just above his head, having not realized he followed her, but shrugged, and not even bothering to change seeing as she was already in sweatpants and a t-shirt, flopped onto the bed.

She heard Jack’s laugh and turned her head to realize both of them had followed her into the room. She kicked her shoes off and crawled up to the top of the bed, snuggling into the pillows with a sigh.

Both boys came over and Henry bent down and kissed her temple “Goodnight baby girl.”

“Mmm. Night Hen’.”

Jack smiled and gently did the same as Henry, brushing her hair off of her face. “‘Night ladybug.”

Chloe smiled slightly sleepily, “‘Night Jack.”

The two boys slipped out of the room with contented smiles as Henry pulled the door shut silently.

Once they got back to the living room, Jack turned a curious eye to Henry “It’s been driving me nuts all night, you know what Chlo’ was supposed to ask me today but didn’t?”

Henry shrugged “Not even a clue, what she mentioned on the phone with mom, right?”

“Yeah.”

Henry shook his head “Yeah, don’t know. She’ll ask you eventually though I’m sure. Mom won’t let it go until she asks whatever she was supposed to.”

Jack nodded and was quiet for a moment before saying quietly “I think I really scared her Henry.”

Henry turned to face his best friend. “You know that nothing was your fault right? I don’t think it was you per say that scared her, more not being able to help you, or not knowing what to do. She loves me because I’m her brother, but you, no one can deny how close you guys are. She chose to love you to every inch of the meaning of older brother, while she was just born into having that with me. I don’t know quite how bad it was, but it sounded like a bad one from Kai, and I’ve seen you in a bad migraine before, even for me, it can be a little scary, not because I can’t help, but because you’re practically my brother. She had not just that, but both going against her, she’ll be okay, she just needs to reassure herself that you’re okay.”

Jack nodded but his lip slightly “I just wish she would believe me that she did actually help me and she didn’t hurt me. I think she still thinks she somehow hurt me worse than the migraine, as if that’s actually possible.” He snorted slightly at the end but Henry frowned “What do you mean helped you versus hurt you?”

Jack sighed “I can’t remember everything, but I remember bits and pieces, and I know there was a point where I was crying and begging her to give me the shot and then the next thing I can remember I’m trying to tell her how to do it but I know it was slurred and half-intelligible. I can only imagine that I flinched or something and she thinks she hurt me because next thing I knew she was on the other side of the office with her knees up to her chest crying for some reason, and then I told her to come over to me and she snuggled up with me and I think we both fell asleep, but I don’t know what happened between those pieces.”

Henry nodded “Talk to her in the morning, explain what you remember versus what she remembers happening, why she was crying, and re-explain that she didn’t hurt you, and go from there.”

Jack nodded “Okay, well I’m exhausted, so I’m going to head to bed, but I’ll see you in the morning.”

Henry agreed “Yeah, I think you and Chloe both had the right idea and an early night will be good.”

About 45 minutes after the boys had gone to bed, just a bit before 12:45, Chloe jolted awake in her bed sweating and gasping. She didn’t know what had prompted it, but for the seemingly millionth time, she’d been tormented in her dreams watching her older brother, her middle brother, Michael, as he’d jogged out into the street to get the soccer ball for the little girl who was playing by herself near where she and Michael had been playing basketball at the park. It was why despite being tall, and seemingly built for basketball, she had hardly touched that damned orange ball since that day when she was 7. He was 7 years older than her, and 4 years younger than Henry. 

He’d offered to take her to the park because her mom was trying to get some cooking done, and she was getting in the way, and Henry, being 18 at the time, was up doing good know what in his room before he went off to his freshman year of college. Chloe had been ecstatic to go to the park with her big, cool, 14-year-old brother, and they’d just been getting ready to go back home after playing some basketball, when a little girl’s soccer ball had gone into the street. The girl’s mom was in a wheelchair and she only looked to be 5 or 6, so Michael had jogged out into the street, grabbing the soccer ball for her, when a car had come flying down the road out of control and she could still see it in her memory, even without being prompted by Jack's migraine today, watching in near slow motion as it had slammed into him and sent him flying through the air quite a ways. 

Chloe had dropped her basketball and raced to her brother’s body, only to come up short at the sight of his battered body, and to watch in horror as his body started seizing, not dissimilar to how Jack had looked for a minute after she’d given him the shot today, and she finally made the connection to why she’d not wanted to leave his side all day. By the time he stopped seizing though and she got to his body, it was just in time to hear him groan out “Love… you *gasp* Chloe.”

He coughed for a minute and she’d watched in horror as blood bubbled out of his mouth and trickled down the side of his face and his eyes rolled back in his head as the life, the light behind them faded. A man who’d been there with his son, and a distinct Marine Corps tattoo she could still remember on his left bicep right beneath the sleeve of his short sleeve t-shirt, had jumped in to start doing CPR, but by the time paramedics got there, it was too late. She had watched with silent tears falling down her cheeks in shock as her brother took his left breaths.

Now though, as she tried to ground herself in the soft blankets and warm comforter, she took deep, if slightly shaky breaths and wiped her face, trying to will herself back to sleep, the way she’d learned so many years ago, when she’d become an expert at making her therapist her parents had forced her to see once they’d realized what she’d seen, think she was doing okay. That she was a child, hadn’t really realized what she’d seen, that nightmares didn’t plague her into sleepless nights for 2 years after that day. The nightmare still came sometimes, like tonight, but it wasn’t nearly as often only once every month or so.

She slipped back into sleep, only to be once more flung into wakefulness at yet another nightmare, that based on the red glow of the clock, at only 1:38 in the morning. She wiped the tears from her eyes, this one, not real, but just something her obnoxious, subconscious, psyche cooked up. She watched the same events that had happened in Jack’s office the prior afternoon, only this time, in her nightmare, instead of his shaking and spazzing ceasing slowly, it just got worse until finally his eyes snapped open and his body went still, and he rasped out “Chloe… why didn’t you help me? I hate you. How could you?” And then just like in her earlier nightmare, and real life relating to Michael, his eyes rolled back and she watched the life flicker out of them just as she launched herself upright in bed and out of that nightmare.

She rubbed frustratedly at her face trying to blink back tears, until finally she slid out of bed and seeing both of Jack’s and Henry’s doors closed, slipped to the kitchen to make herself some hot chocolate and turned on the small countertop tv in there as she made it in the microwave, trying to be quiet so as to not wake her brothers up.

In their bedrooms on the other side of the kitchen wall though, Jack had started stirring at the sound or cabinets and the refrigerator closing, followed by an unidentifiable show on the tv, as he’d always suffered from an unfortunate case of being a very light sleeper.

Henry had blinked awake confusedly when the microwave played its little tune and had slowly drug himself out of bed to see what was going on in basketball shorts and no shirt, only to nearly run into Jack who was leaving his room in front of him, similarly clad, but in sweatpants and no shirt instead. A quick glance showed Chloe’s bed empty, and the two silently padded towards the kitchen where they found Chloe with her knees up by her chin curled into the corned of the nook table in the kitchen, watching TV, and sipping a beverage of hot something based of the steam, Hot Chocolate, Henry guessed, if he knew anything at all about his coffee hating sister.

Henry tapped the doorframe gently making her jump but look up “Henry?”

Henry slid into the seat across from his sister “Chlo? What’s going on?”

She took a long inhate of her Hot Chocolate and bit her lip before mumbling “Couldn’t sleep.”

Henry frowned “How come?”

“Nightmares. I’ve already had two and I barely went to bed just over two hours ago.”

Both boys frowned and Jack slid into the seat next to her to give her a hug.

Henry said “Do you want to talk about it?”

Chloe shrugged and Jack rubbed her shoulder. “It might help?”

Chloe sighed and said “The first one was just a normal, nightmare or reliving stuff that I’ve seen before, but the second one my subconscious changes the outcome so the person dies and I just decided I didn’t feel like seeing any more people die in my sleep so I came out here to watch TV.”

Both boys were silent for a moment before Jack said “The second one was about me?”

Chloe nodded slightly and Jack sighed and pulled her into a hug.

“I’m right here Chlo, I’m fine, I promise, you didn’t hurt me, and I’m okay.”

Chloe nodded and nuzzled into his shoulder “I know that, right now, just I guess when I’m asleep…”

Henry bit his lip “What scared you so much when you saw Jack?”

Chloe pursed her lips “I mean, obviously when I had to give him the shot.”

“And?” Henry prompted.

Chloe was silent for a minute before speaking quietly “A-after I gave him the shot… his shaking changed. It was m-more...spastics. H-he looked like he was h-having a seizure, like he was seizing up.”

She hesitated for a moment before speaking even quieter so both Henry and Jack had to strain to hear her. “He looked just like Michael.”

Chloe pinched her lips shut and turned her face away from Henry and buried it into the side of Jack’s arm until slowly Jack rubbed her side getting her attention. She finally looked back up at Henry who was looking at her sympathetically. “That’s what your first dream was about, right? When Michael died?”

Chloe nodded sullenly and Henry continued “I think you need to talk about it. And don’t say you have. I know the ‘I didn’t see anything’ line you fed to the cops and mom and dad and the therapist until she said you were fine. But you didn’t, did you? You saw everything. You need to talk it out.”

Chloe bit her lip and Jack shot Henry an angry look when tears started to drip out of her eyes but finally she shook her head “Why? What do you want me to say? That if we’d left 5 minutes earlier when he’d tried to get me to leave we wouldn’t have been anywhere near that drunk driver? That I already know it was my fault?! That I watched as he picked the soccer ball up and the car slammed into him at what looked like 500 miles per hour?! That I WATCHED my brother’s body be flung through the air like a rag doll and heard the cracks as he landed on the ground. That I watched as his body started seizing and thrashing. I watched the light disappear in his eyes, watched them roll back only milliseconds after he gasped out ‘ love you Chloe.’?! I watched the blood bubbled out of his mouth. As the guy with the tattoo tried to do CPR, as the paramedics called my older brother’s time of death in front of me?! Is that what you want to hear?!”

Jack tightened his hold around her body with tears forming in his eyes as he watched helplessly as tears streamed down her face and Henry tensed slightly at what actually happened being thrown in his face. 

Finally Henry composed himself and said gently “I’m so sorry, Chlo. I realize this probably wasn’t the best time to bring that up and I wasn’t intending to upset you that much, Chlo. I’m sorry. I just have to say though that it wasn’t your fault. It was the idiotic assole who got behind the wheel 6 sheets to the wind.”

Chloe bit her lip and deflated as she wiped her tears, but just a few more leaking out. Henry slid around the bench of the nook so Chloe was smushed between him and Jack before bringing her into a tight, warm, comforting hug. Finally, after a while of them sitting in close, comfortable silence, Henry said “and I know Jack has tomorrow off but I still have work and we should probably all head back to bed.”

Chloe tensed and shook her head as Henry reached out for the remote and turned the TV off. She cuddled even closer into Jack’s side, wondering how Henry could possibly not see that she didn’t want to go back to sleep.

Henry sighed and exchanged sad looks with Jack over her head, and then finally Jack slid out of the bench tugging Chloe with him.

As soon as she was standing she shook his hand off her arm and went into the living room to curl up in the corner of the sofa.

Henry followed her and sighed. “Chlo, please, it’s 2 in the morning, you need sleep.”

Chloe shook her head and Henry frowned “Why not?”

Chloe sighed and mumbled out sadly “I told you, I don’t want to see people dying in nightmares again tonight.”

Jack, who had stayed in the doorway while Henry talked to his sister, spoke up “You can sleep with me, if you want, Chlo?”

Henry choked on his spit for half a second at the words before his early morning, sleep interrupted brain caught up with what Jack meant.

Jack rolled his eyes and walked over, holding a hand out to Chloe as he shook his head at Henry. “Not like that, you idiot.”

Chloe bit her lip but finally nodded as Jack playfully messed up her hair, “Besides, she’s too young for me anyways.”

Henry snorted “I should hope so.”

Chloe couldn’t help but snicker slightly at their banter.

Jack helped pull Chloe up off of the sofa and let her cling to his side a little bit as they walked back to his bedroom. He pulled the covers down and let her climb in before laying down and pulling the covers up. She quickly maneuvered herself so she was laying partially on him and had her head resting on his chest, relishing in the warmth and comfort she got from being curled up in… him. He allowed her to snuggle onto him and then once she was comfortable, tucked the covers tighter around them knowing she would be freezing all night otherwise, and gently kissed the top of her head as she nuzzled his collarbone before letting out a cute little sigh and letting her eyes flutter closed, and her mind drag her under her wave of exhaustion. 

Once he felt her body finally relax and slump into his slightly, Jack smiled and gently brushed a hand through her hair, before finally relaxing enough to allow himself to fall asleep as well.

Only four and a half hours later, Henry groaned as his alarm went off and drug himself out of bed, blearily getting dressed and heading to the kitchen, but pausing in Jack’s doorway with a little smile. Chloe was curled up with at least half of her body on his, and her head was firmly buried into the hollow of his neck and under his chin. Her left leg was thrown over his legs and his arms were wrapped tightly around her body. They had obviously moved around some, and the covers had been mostly kicked off, only covering them from just under the waist down. Henry smiled and took a couple of *adorable* pictures of the two of them, gently re-covering the two before pulling the door back shut behind him and making his way to the kitchen and making some coffee. 

He left a few minutes later to get to work, allowing them to sleep in after the interrupted night they’d had.

Finally, the two started stirring around 9:30 that morning and Chloe went to stretch, only to realize the heavy arms holding her down, and the tight grip she’d had around his shoulders. They got moving slowly, going to the kitchen for some breakfast which they ate pretty quietly.

Finally after breakfast, and Chloe had flopped down on the sofa, quickly followed by Jack lifting her legs up so he could sit at the other end, and letting her lay them over his lap, and one episode of a show on netflix, Jack turned towards Chloe with a curious expression.

She raised an eyebrow at him as she folded her legs under her, shifting to get comfortable again, implying he should ask whatever he wanted to know so badly.

He gave a sheepish smile and said “I swear I wasn’t trying to listen to your call with your mom last night, but what did you not ask me yesterday because of my migraine?”   
Chloe brushed brightly, “Oh. That. Uhhhhm…”

Jack raised his eyebrows with a slightly amused smile. “Oh really?”

Chloe blushed and averted her eyes as she bit her lip before finally saying “It-uh, it’s about my birth control.”

Jack’s face turned serious and focused, and nodded as he crossed his feet under him. “Okay?”

Chloe sighed “I still seem to be completely failing at remembering to take a pill every morning, so my mom and I talked the other night and she uh, we talked about switching me to an IUD.”

Jack nodded “Okay, and?”

“She thinks I should do it, and I kind of agree, but I mean, I guess I’m kind of scared.”

Jack frowned “Okay, can I add my two sense in?”

Chloe nodded “Just because it’s what she suggests, doesn't mean you have to do it, just because I suggest something doesn’t mean you have to do it. Putting in an IUD is obviously more permanent than taking a pill every day, not that it is permanent, you can get it taken out at any time, but it’s more permanent than just taking or not taking a pill, so I personally would want you to more than just kind of think it’s what you want to do, that you want to make that change. If you do actually want to make the change, then that’s different though, so I don’t want you to try and phrase things certain ways, just be honest okay?”

Chloe nodded, and Jack continued “But I would tend to agree that it makes the most sense. You’re busy, that would make it hard to remember sometimes, and we’ve tried it, but it does seem to be hard for you to remember, which would mean that more realistic, or the probably better solution would be to switch to an IUD. But you said you’re scared, so let’s talk about that. Why? What questions of yours can I answer?”

Chloe bit her lip and said finally “I know google’s not the most reliable, but, I read a lot of stuff that said it would hurt, some just said it would be painful, others said it would hurt like a hella lot. And I mean, obviously, something there? That’s that painful? It’s kind of stressful and nerve wracking. And then I saw stuff that said getting it out hurts too, like not as much, but still some. And I asked mom, and she said that when she had one, it did hurt to get put in, and like we all know she has a crazy high pain tolerance… so, that’s concerning.”

Jack nodded easily. “Well first of all, you have a high pain tolerance too, Miss. I-got my finger stuck in a 300-lb door and barely cried, gave myself frostbite because you didn’t realize it hurt, and I could keep listing.” He gave her a tiny grin before continuing, “But to be frank, everything I’ve heard from patients and a couple of female colleagues, does say that it will hurt. Obviously, the pain is temporary, with some people any cramping or bleeding go away in the first 2 or 3 days, with some it can take closer to two weeks. There are obviously specific things we do to help try and limit the pain, but we can’t completely knock it all out. But we’re putting a little object inside of you, past where anything would normally go, so it will more than likely hurt.”

Chloe bit her lip but nodded and quipped “Yeah, not exactly the biggest selling point.”

Jack just smiled at her gently and she thought for a moment before blushing furiously and saying, “On top of that, I know the pain goes away, but having something just randomly hanging out in your vagina sounds really uncomfortable, and if you uh, you know, like have sex or soemthing, wouldn’t it feel weird for the guy?”

Jack shook his head “Well, firstly, it doesn’t go in your vagina, that’s just how it goes in. It goes through your cervix, and into your uterus, so really a guy shouldn’t be able to feel it. There’s a tiny chance he’ll be able to feel the strings from it, but even that’s unlikely. But back to it being uncomfortable for you, really, you shouldn’t be able to feel it at all, so nothing would really change and nothing should feel uncomfortable.”

Chloe nodded and said “I saw something that said it could like fall out or something?”

Jack nodded “That is possible, though it really is unlikely, that doesn’t happen hardly ever. If it would, say partially dislodge, it may become uncomfortable or even slightly painful for you, but you just get it removed by a doctor as soon as you can, and another one put in if you want. It is important to realize about that though, that usually only happens during your period because your cervix is generally at its most open at that time, but even then, it’s not that common, and since we’re trying one to stop your period completely, it’ll be even less likely to fall out on you.”

Chloe nodded. “I know there are some risks to it that differ from a pill and can make it slightly more dangerous. Like I saw something that said it could give you a stroke or something?”

Jack nodded “Well, for that specifically, yes, it technically is a risk, however a very, very, very minor, exceedingly rare one, and with your age and health, even less likely. Other potential, though almost all of them are rare, side effects, include lightheadedness for a couple of minutes after having it put in, but that only lasts a few minutes. About 1 in 10 women get an ovarian cyst while utilizing an IUD, but most of those resolve themselves within three months, enough to where you might not ever even know you had one. On this IUD that I suggested for you, you have a less than 1% chance of getting pregnant, but if you would somehow, it does increase your risk for an ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, or similar. Like almost any medical procedure, there are slight risks, but especially with how young and healthy you are, they’re possible, but almost non-existent in your case.”

Chloe nodded and relaxed back into the couch cushion, “Okay… I think I want to do it. I think it’s the best option for me.”

Jack nodded and smiled “Okay then, were you thinking about getting it put in sooner, or later?”

Chloe bit her lip, “Probably sooner.”

Jack nodded “Okay, then, talk it over with your mom, but what I want you to do is intentionally stop taking your birth control pills. Most women get their period again in two-three weeks, some sooner, some later, it’s variable, but once you do, I want you to either schedule and appointment officially with Gina, or talk to me and we’ll figure out the best time to get you in, okay?”

Chloe frowned “Why are we waiting for me to get my period.”

Jack smiled gently “Because, while I’m not saying it’ll make the procedure hurt a lot less, it’s the time when your cervix is the most open, so it will cause you the least discomfort to get the IUD put in then.”

Chloe pursed her lips “But then everything is all… bloody and messy down there.”

Jack just chuckled, “That really doesn’t matter. Just like an OBGYN could do a regular check up while the patient is on her period, we can put an IUD in then too.”

Chloe nodded her understanding.


	7. Hurt

2 weeks later, on a Friday night at the end of April, around 6pm, JJ and Chloe sat in Jack’s office in front of his desk.

Jack folded his hands on his desk looking directly at Chloe, “Okay, Chloe, you want to do this today?”

Chloe nodded and Jack echoed the motion in confirmation.

“Okay, so what I’m going to do, is because I know you’re already in pain from being on your period, and the pain this will cause, once we get into an exam room, I’m going to give you a dose of Ketorolac (a/n don’t take this is sound medical advice, all I know is that it’s a prescription NSAID), which is a prescription strength NSAID, so don’t worry, you won’t get flagged on any steroids or anything knowing that you have a gymnastics meet in a couple of weeks if you get drug tested. Then, we’ll give that a minute to kick in, and then we’ll get into the procedure. All told it should take maybe all of 15 minutes, from when I give you the painkiller to when I’m done, and half of that is just letting the Ketorolac kick in. Do you have any more questions for me?”

Chloe hesitated “Can you, in not enough details to freak me out, but basic details, tell me exactly what’s going to happen?”

Jack gave her an easy smile “Of course. So, before I even start anything, you’ll have to either put a gown on, or take your pants off, for this it really doesn’t matter either way, then if you’re okay with it, I want to put an IV in and a couple of monitors on your chest just because some people get lightheaded from it, and with your history of orthostatic hypotension, if you faint, I want to be able to watch and make sure everything’s okay. Then, I’ll give you the Ketorolac, we’ll give it a few minutes to kick in, and then we’ll actually. I’ll put the IUD in a special tube to insert it, gently open your vagina with a speculum, if I need to open your cervix more than it is, I’ll put a special medication on it to get it to relax, I’ll put the tube through your cervix and into your uterus which is where most of the pain comes from, push the IUD out and pull the tube back out. Remove the speculum, have you lay there for a couple of minutes to make sure you don’t pass out, and done.”

Chloe blinked but nodded “O-okay, yeah, that sounds okay.”

Jack smiled and stood up “Okay, do you want your mom to be in the room too?”

Chloe bit her lip but nodded and Jack nodded as well as he led them out of his office. He walked them down to exam room 7 and guided Chloe inside. 

“Do you want a gown or…”

Chloe shook her head, “I’ll just leave my shirt on and take my pants off.”

Jack nodded and pulled out a sheet that she could put over her lap and then stepped back out to where JJ was standing.

Once the door was shut the two stood in a comfortable, if slightly anxious, at least on JJ’s part, silence, until Henry happened to walk by.

“Mom?”

JJ gestured to the closed room behind them “Chloe.”

Henry frowned “What’s going on?”

Jack said nothing but JJ made a sympathetic face and said “She’s getting an IUD put in.”

Henry frowned “Oh, I had a friend in college who had one put in, she literally laid on the couch for the next like 3 days and didn’t move.”

JJ rolled her eyes “Believe me, I’ve had one put in, I’m aware.”

Henry mock gagged “Uggh, didn’t need the mental image that just provided.”

JJ and Jack snorted in amusement as Henry walked away towards his office, and Jack guided JJ into the exam room, where Chloe was sitting on the exam table and Jack gave her a gentle smile and rubbed her shoulder as he walked past.

“Okay, ready to get started?”

Chloe nodded and Jack opened a drawer, pulling out a tray with a few things on it, one of which was the things to set up an IV, Chloe recognized. Jack grabbed that stuff first.

“Okay, Chlo, we’ll do this first so while it’s kicking in, I’ll get everything else out and set up, ok?”

Chloe bit her lip as she eyed the needle, but nodded and JJ stepped up on Chloe’s right side, gently pulling her daughter’s head onto her shoulder and wrapping her arms around her torso. “Don’t watch, it just takes a second.”

Jack gently maneuvered her left arm and tied the blue rubber around her bicep, before cleaning off her inner elbow and the area just below. Out of her sight, he readied the needle and gently holding her arm said “Take a couple of deep breaths for me, Chlo.”

Chloe did as told, shakily taking a couple of breaths, and on her third exhale, Jack expertly slid the needle in with no warning, making Chloe tense slightly and pinch her eyes shut as she let out a tiny whimper, before finally relaxing as Jack set her arm down. He quickly injected the NSAID in through the IV before she could lean away from JJ and taped the IV down to keep it in place and from moving and pinching her.

He stepped back with a little smile.

“Okay, now I’m just going to put a couple of leads under your shirt, sound good?”

Chloe nodded and Jack quickly placed the wireless leads on her skin, flipping on the display box and muting the sound as he did, so as to not stress her out even more if her heart rate was a little fast from being nervous. It was slightly, but not enough to concern him, so he moved on, moving around to ready his supplies. 

He rolled his chair over to the end of the exam table before saying “JJ, if you can go up by Chloe’s head?”

JJ moved and Jack extended the stirrups out of the table and had her lay back gently as he redid the drape so it would still keep her covered.

FInally he said, “Okay, Chlo, you ready?”

Chloe nodded and he sat down, gently helping her to put her legs up in the stirrups and pushing them apart and open slightly.

He adjusted the drape so he could see, while her and JJ’s view would be covered and gently touched the inside of her thigh in warning before touching the outside of her genitals with his left hand, before easily brushing her lower lips open and sliding in a gloved, lubed finger from his right hand, expertly doing a rapid exam to make sure everything was as it should be and checked out. Once he’d done that, he extracted his finger and lubed the special speculum, giving her a brief warning before slowly sliding it deep into her vagina. He slowly clicked it open watching for any signs of distress, but seeing nothing other than her occasional stifled grunt of discomfort at the odd sensations, opened it fully. He turned on the lights connected to the speculum, illuminating her vagina and cervix. Taking a special cloth, he delicately wiped what blood he could see, clearing his line of sight. He determined her cervix was open enough, no other medication would be needed and took the insertion tube he’d already put the IUD into and gently rubbed her hip “Okay Chloe, I’m going put the IUD in now, it shouldn’t take long, but I need you to make sure you don’t move. Make sure you keep taking deep breaths and squeeze your mom’s hands tightly if you need to, got it?”

“Yeah.”

JJ reached down and slid her hands into her daughter’s in a comforting daughter and Jack easily guided the tube through her vagina and up to her cervix.

He waited for Chloe to take one more deep breath and then pushed it through and up into her uterus wincing at her whimpers and the couple of tears that dripped down her cheek but not focusing on that, he quickly and carefully pushed the IUD out and into place, and then withdrew the inserter, setting it on the tray next to him. He quickly looked over her cervix and seeing that everything was okay, carefully closed and removed the speculum, easing her legs down out of the stirrups and pushing them down and out of the way as he laid her legs down flat on the table.

***Rewind 1 minute***

Chloe’s eyes pressed shut and her face screwed up as a couple of involuntary whimpers escaped her throat and a couple of unruly tears escaped her cheeks, but then the pain, the cramp that seized up her pelvic region, eased slightly and she let her head relax back.

JJ softly brushed her daughter’s cheeks dry with her thumbs, as Jack set her legs down and pushed the stirrups away, only to freeze as the all too familiar view of her daughter’s eyes fluttering shut and her body’s muscles dropping her limply into the table.

Jack looked up when the heart monitor’s alarm beeped it’s high pitch frequency impossibly fast. He’d only turned off the general beeping, not the emergency beeping if her heart rate went high, or low for that matter, enough to indicate a potential emergency...or unconsciousness. He quickly stepped up next to her head gently tapping the side of her face and gently rubbing a circle into the top of her arm watching her vitals carefully as they slowly crept back towards steadier and finally her eyes fluttered for a moment before she completely opened them.

Finally, ten minutes later Jack allowed her to slowly, and carefully, and under his very watchful eye stand up to make sure she wouldn't pass out again. He frowned at her groan and the hand she pressed against her pelvic, uterine area.

He gently pressed a kiss against her temple “Okay Chlo, you and your mom can get out of here, Advil and heating pads for the cramps, if the cramps and any bleeding haven’t stopped after about a week or so, let me know.”

Chloe nodded and allowed her mom to wrap a hand around her waist and guide her out of the offices and the hospital.

**\-------------------------------------------**

It was early June, just a little bit after Chloe’s junior year ended, and the four boys were going on a month long international doctor trip of some kind, that Chloe honestly wasn’t 100% sure what it was. She thought it had something to do with doctors without borders, but she couldn’t remember exactly. They would be leaving that afternoon, and though they were all a little sad they would miss one of Chloe’s big gymnastics competitions that was taking place a week after they left, they all promised to come to the first one she had once they came back.

The boys were sent off with happy, but slightly tearful goodbyes at the airport, excited for the boys, but Chloe especially, who spent so much time around them, was going to really miss them.

The first week actually managed to go by relatively quickly for Chloe, who threw herself into constant practicing for her meet, and making sure all of her routines would go off perfectly.

JJ and Will both took off work for the day and were right there watching as her team worked their way around the competition floor and through the events. (a/n if you know a lot about gymnastics, sorry, I quit when I was 8 because I was too tall, so ignore painful inaccuracies.) Chloe started on beam, earning an excellent 9.3. She did vault next earning a 9.5 and a 9.6 on each of her two vaults, before moving on to the uneven bars. She’d always excelled on the bars, earning an exceptional 9.8. Finally, she ended the day on the floor. Her floor routine was going beautifully, and impressively, and she went into her last pass of the routine, excellent until she went into her last move, a double twisting, double flip, but when she went to land, her left leg hit a splash of water that had somehow been missed and puddled on the floor, and went out behind her dropping her into an slightly uncoordinated split, which should have been fine but she didn’t land properly and as her body rocked slightly as it hit the ground. She attempted to finish as best as possible, but she felt something pop in her groin and she quickly collapsed slightly curling up with a hand on the inside of where her thigh met with her hip. All she could feel was the excruciating pain on the inside of the joint.

The next few minutes were a blur, she remembered her coach racing over to her, she remembered her mom and dad hovering over her, and then letting out a cry of pain as her dad scooped her up, she remembered being rushed to the hospital, and being put in an exam bed in the ER. The nurses and a doctor rushed around her asking what happened, and the nurses gently helping her wrap the ice around her muscle.

She got some pain relief, and one of the nurses, a nurse named Alyssa, who she quickly realized she rather liked, and she seemed familiar, though it took her longer than usual between the pain meds and the pain to figure it out.

“Ummm, Alyssa?”

The nurse looked up from where she was writing in her chart with an easy smile. “Yes?”

Chloe forced a smile that looked more like a grimace, but she tried “Do you uh, usually work for one of the practices upstairs here at University?”   
Alyssa blinked and then smiled “Ah, you figured it out, I wasn’t going to confuse you if you didn’t recognize me from being distracted by the pain and the meds, yeah, I usually work up in your brother’s practice, but with them out of the country and the ER short staffed tonight, I agreed to come in.”

JJ laughed “Oh, that was going to bother me for a while, I couldn’t remember where I’d seen you before.”

Alyssa nodded in JJ’s direction, “Yeah, I didn’t know if you’d recognize me, but with how much time Chloe spends hanging around, I figured she would eventually. Chloe, I’m going to check on where the doctor we have coming in to consult on you is. I’ve never worked with him before, but he consults on ER orthopedic cases frequently.”

Chloe nodded and Nurse Alyssa slid out of the room sliding the door shut behind her as she did.

About 5 minutes later, Dr. Bryant walked in with a polite, if distant greeting as he started going over her symptoms, what had happened, and feeling the muscle.

Ten minutes later he was done and spoke brusquely “Okay, I have no reason to believe it’s anything other than a pulled muscle so ice it, OTC pain relievers or anti-inflammatories if you need.”

He stood up and Chloe blinked “Um, Doctor, not to be rude, but I’ve had numerous pulled muscles before, this is far worse than any pulled muscle I’ve ever had, I think a MRI would be needed to make sure nothing’s torn.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows at her dubiosult and JJ backed her daughter up “In her lengthy years as a gymnast she’s had more sprains, twists, and pulled muscles that I can count, I think this one might be worse than just a simple pulled muscle in her groin.”

The doctor frowned “Groin pulls can be particularly painful, give it 6 weeks and if you’re still in a lot of pain we’ll try an x-ray first, but for now I’m going to write a referral for physical therapy to help strengthen your hamstrings and abdominal muscles, as more than likely a weakness in them caused this.”

The doctor turned and left the room leaving JJ, Will, and Chloe all in surprise, but JJ sighed and looked at Chloe. “I know you have a plenty strong core and legs, but if you’re willing to try physical therapy for a couple of weeks, not yet, we’ll give it a week first to let your muscles start to heal from whatever, then when the boys get back if you’re still in pain we can have Hank look at it or get another opinion.”

Chloe sighed but nodded “Yeah, we can try it. I think doing that stuff now would just make it worse though.”

JJ nodded “I agree, we’ll give it a week or so and then reevaluate, alright?”

Chloe nodded and a new nurse came in saying that Alyssa had gotten called into a code in another part of the ER, but that she would be discharging Chloe unless they had any more questions. They agreed so Nurse Hallie discharged Chloe to go home, with the doctor’s written note for physical therapy.

The first week and a couple of days were very painful for Chloe, and she was taking ibuprofen and acetaminophen alternatively, as often as the recommended doses allowed, and icing her inside of her groin constantly. She was beyond grateful that she didn’t have school, because trying to move more than from the sofa to the dinner table was enough walking to have her wanting to crumple in a ball just from that.

She agreed to the doctor’s recommendation though, and started physical therapy every three days after a week and a half. It took her about another week to realize that the physical therapy sessions were actually making it worse and that her pain levels were skyrocketing. She absolutely refused to keep going after a week and a half of it and JJ and Will both agreed, this was obviously not helping, and was making it much, much worse. They were three weeks after her meet when the injury had first happened, and she’d gone backwards to the point where she could barely walk because she was in such immoveable pain. Standing up was an exercise in trying not to throw up, and walking even 2 or three steps was an exercise in trying not to pass out from pain.

She had taken to sitting on ice packs with one between her legs almost constantly, even needing to have one one her groin area just to fall asleep, now that the pain wasn’t just in the one spot, but on both sides of her groin and on the inside of both hip joints, her lower back and lower abdomen, both the front and back of her thighs, it was pretty much nauseating, blinding pain from her navel to halfway down her thighs.

The boys arrived back from their humanitarian mission in South Africa, and all of their parents were thrilled to see them. Henry had pointed out that he was incredibly surprised that Chloe wasn’t with them and neither was Will, but JJ had quietly explained that she’d gotten hurt at her gymnastics meet and couldn’t move much, and Henry was obviously very worried, but JJ said he could come over in a day or two and that she would probably be having Hank check Chloe out, because their first doctor they’d seen did nothing. Henry nodded and continued greeting everyone who was happy to see them, and they were happy to see as well after a month away.

They went back to work the next day because it was a Tuesday. None of the boys had gotten to see Chloe yet, and Henry had given them the cliff notes version of the summary his mom had given him, so they didn’t really know quite what was going on with her, but Henry and Jack were going over that night after dinner, and Hank and Kai were planning to go over the next night. 

At about 6:30 the four boys were all getting some coffee and catching up after the busy day they’d had, and hoping to be getting home soon, when Hank got paged to the ER for a consult, and then 5 minutes later Jack got paged down as well for a consult.

***A little while earlier***

JJ rushed her daughter back into the emergency room, after she’d passed out briefly, after the short walk from the bathroom to the living room sofa. SHe knew her daughter passed out sometimes, but her mom instinct told her it had nothing to do with her orthostatic hypotension, and everything to do with whatever the hell was wrong with her daughter and hadn’t gotten diagnosed.

Chloe had come back around within a couple of minutes, and JJ, not willing to ignore her gut feeling, took her daughter back into University Hospital’s emergency room.

They were once again taken back to an exam room quickly, especially with the obvious pain her daughter was in. As soon as they got in the room nurses had gotten her some ice to sit on and put on top of her groin, much to her relief.

The ER doctor got the facts from her and then said with a slightly sheepish smile. “I’m going to be perfectly honest, I’m not the right person to treat this, because I quite frankly have no idea where to start. I’m going to call in an orthopedic consult though, and leave you in his capable hands, if that sounds okay?”

Chloe nodded and hesitated for a second before saying “But not Dr. Bryant, okay?”

The ER doctor looked surprised but nodded “Um, okay, he’s not one of the ones we usually call to consult, so that’s fine.”

Nurse Steph spoke up, “Doctor, Dr. Morgan was just paged into an ER bay for an elderly woman who fell down her stairs, if that’s who you were thinking of, but could I give you an idea?”

Dr. Kent nodded, and she spoke “What about a gyno consult? There’s no one who would know the muscles there better.”

Dr. Kent made a considering face and nodded slowly “Actually, I think that might be useful as well. But not from general OB, and not Dr. Jennings, there’s only one doctor who I think specializes enough.”

Nurse Elisa nodded “Yes, in one of the practices on the fifth floor is it?”

Dr. Kent nodded, “Yes, him, page him please. And when Dr. Morgan’s done with his current patient, send him this way as well.”

Nurse Elisa nodded and rushed out of the room to do as she was told and Dr. Kent turned to Chloe and JJ with a reassuring smile. “The two doctors we’ve paged are some of the best in their fields, they’ll figure out what’s going on and fix you up.”

Chloe nodded and JJ gave him an appreciative smile as she said with a slight smile “Yes, we know Dr. Morgan.”

The ER doctor looked surprised “Oh, how, may I ask?” The ER doctor was honestly just slightly curious, as the doctors in his practice, Riverside Health, if he remembered correctly, and oh right, 4th floor, not 5th, were very friendly, pretty much adored by patients, all very, very good doctors, but also all known for being a bit closed off to outsiders when it came to personal matters. He was only in his first year at University Hospital, but he’d heard from some of his older colleagues that all four of the doctors there were kids of FBI agents and had grown up together, and practically been best friends their whole lives, so maybe that had something to do with it. He’d also heard that two of them carried guns, but that was just a unverified rumor by them, and if they did, he had to say it was slightly anxiety inducing for him, but again, if their parents  _ were _ all FBI agents, that probably explained it.

That didn’t matter right now though, because while he was curious, he wanted to keep his patient as relaxed and distracted as he could until Dr. Hotchner or Morgan got there, and maybe this was something she could talk about.

Chloe nodded slightly “Yeah, he’s like best friends with my brother, and his dad and mom work with my mom.”

Chloe was trying to not focus on the pain, but she just didn’t have the energy to explain the complicated relationships about how the BAU team was a family and that he was practically her brother too, and the other doctors that worked with her brother, and how they’d all grown up together and were all uber super protective of her.

JJ spoke up then “Um, would you mind if I call my husband, her father, and also her brother, they’ll want to be here.”

Dr. Kent gave her an understanding smile “Normally, you can’t in a hospital, but just keep your voice down and it’ll be okay.”

JJ gave him a grateful smile, and called Will, who was on shift, and explained what was happening to him. He offered to try and get off work to come by, but JJ said they’d be okay, but if she needed him to, she’d call back, and that she’d keep him updated.

She called Henry next who answered up in the break room where he’d been talking with Kai over what Jack’s and Derek’s respective pages might turn out to be.

“Hey mom, what’s up?”

JJ spoke quickly “Chloe was admitted to the ER. The injury I told you about, when you guys got back a couple of days ago, it’s not getting better and today she passed out from how bad the pain got when she tried to walk from the bathroom to the living room. She woke up a minute later but something’s really wrong Henry, can you come down here?”

Henry blinked “University’s ER?”

“Yeah, ER room 5.”

Henry set his coffee mug down and quickly stood up, followed by Kai who was watching nervously when he’d heard Henry say something about their ER. Henry quickly strode out of the room and said “Okay, mom, I’m on my way, Derek and Jack are both somewhere, actually I think Derek might be in the ER, he got paged maybe 10 minutes ago and Jack literally just got paged somewhere a minute ago, but Kai’s with me, we’ll be down in 5 minutes.”

Henry hung up right as they reached the elevator and impatiently pressed the down button as he filled Kai in. “That injury of Chloe’s I told you guys about, she was just admitted to the ER downstairs because I guess it’s been getting really bad over the week and a half or so, and today she passed out from how much pain she was in. They came to the ER right when it happened and were told it was nothing serious, but mom brought her back today. Bay 5.”

The elevator finally opened and they got in, quickly sending it back down to the ground floor as Kai processed what he said and then when the doors opened again, they were quickly navigating easily through the bustling of the ER and around the central doctors/nurses area and to Chloe’s room, gently pushing the door open and entering with gentle, but slightly concerned smiles as they took in Chloe’s pained form on the bed.

Henry crossed over to his baby sister and bent down to wrap her in a gentle, but secure, comforting hug, both happy to see her, and sad that this was how he was seeing her for the first time in a little over a month. “I missed you baby girl. I missed you so much.”

Chloe wrapped her arms around her older brother, gently laying her head on his shoulder. “I missed you too Henry. I love you.”

Henry turned his head slightly to kiss the side of her head with a smile “I love you too, Chlo.”

JJ smiled at her two kids and when Henry pulled back, Kai bent down to give her a warm, comforting hug, as well.

Chloe smiled and kissed his neck as he gently brushed her temple with a kiss as well before pulling away and allowing Henry to perch on the edge of her bed and gently run a hand through her hair as she leaned into his touch. 

“So what’s going on Chlo?”

Chloe sighed as she leaned onto his shoulder. “I fell on my double double at the end of my floor routine. There was a puddle and my left leg slipped out behind me and I fell into the splits...sort of. I wasn’t expecting it so I didn’t land evenly and I felt something pop. We came here, and the doctor sent me to PT for the last week and a half, but it’s gotten so bad that I can barely stand up, walk, anything other than lay there, take Advil, and ice it.”

Henry pouted his lip slightly and rubbed her back. “I’m sorry hun, so what’s happening now?”

“Dr. Kent is the ER doctor, he just stepped out a minute before you came in, and had a nurse page Hank, and someone I never caught the name of, but I think an OBGYN.”

Henry nodded consideringly “Actually, I probably wouldn’t have thought of paging gyno, but that’s actually a pretty smart idea.”

Chloe nodded slightly. “It was actually one of the nurses who suggested it when she told him Hank was already in a different bay so it would be a minute before he could get over here.”

Just then they saw Jack just outside the edge of the window to the room talking to Dr. Kent and Chloe snorted “Oh, are you serious right now.”

The boys looked up and both smiled slightly as they realized that Chloe was why Jack had been paged down. JJ looked up in time to hear Jack’s voice raise “It’s who?!” through the window before he whirled around and the door flew open and Jack blinked as he saw Chloe specifically, as well as JJ, and then took in the sight of Henry and Kai looking towards him from the edge of the bed and leaning against the counter respectively.

Jack turned to drill a hard glare into Dr. Kent “You didn’t think I might want to know the patient was my fellow doctor’s sister? More than 3 seconds before I walked in the room?”

Dr. Kent sputtered and apologized for a second, until Jack backed off at Chloe’s look towards him, more stopped by the pain in her eyes than her actual message being conveyed to them. He took a deep breath and stepped back, allowing Dr. Kent to leave, and closing the door behind him, before looking to Chloe with a gentle smile and bending down to give her a hug just like Henry had.

“Hey ladybug.”

Chloe smiled and allowed him to gently kiss her forehead and brush her hair behind her ear lovingly.

Jack moved to stand up next to her side, and gently rubbed her shoulder. “You know, I did miss you, but not enough to want to have you as an ER patient here, Chlo.”

Chloe tried for a smile, that again turned out more like a grimace before giving up and just leaning against Henry’s shoulder again.

Jack's smile turned slightly concerned, even as he said “Why don’t we go over what happened, and we’ll see where we can go from there, and if you actually need me, or general ortho, okay?”

Chloe nodded and Jack continued “So Dr. Kent said you said you’ve been pretty much immobile from pain for the last week or so?”

Chloe nodded but JJ spoke up “She passed out just from the pain of walking from the bathroom to the living room, that’s why I finally brought her in again.”

Jack nodded and had to suppress a slight smile of amusement as he looked at JJ who despite trusting the boys to take care of her daughter in every way, looked every inch the picture of an overwhelmed, anxiety ridden mother. “JJ, I know you mean well, and if Chloe can’t remember something that happened, then you can add that, but it’s usually more useful for me if she can answer the questions herself, because she can feel her body herself, instead of something getting relayed through 4 different people.”

JJ blushed and nodded and Chloe spoke “The pain was bad for the first week and a half after my meet, but once I started the physical therapy a little over a week and a half ago, that Dr. Bryant wanted me to do, it got worse, really, really quickly, and I’ve been in this level of like, excruciating pain for the last week.”

Jack blinked and paused in his looking at her chart for a minute “Wait? You’ve already started physical therapy?”

Chloe shrugged “Started it just over a week and a half ago, and then stopped about 4 days ago because I couldn’t even move enough to get up to go to the appointment, and it was making the pain worse, and so I just decided I wasn’t doing it any more.”

Jack frowned deeply “I don’t understand why the hell he already wanted you doing PT, but we’ll come back to that.”

Chloe spoke again “For the first bit though, before I started PT, it did still hurt a lot, even then. It kind of felt like nothing was getting better and that if I moved something was like being ripped in half and I was going to tear something.”

“Where? Your groin? From what you told Dr. Kent, the pain’s not only been getting worse, but expanding, when did that start happening?”

“Yeah, originally just on the inside of where my right thigh met my hip and a little bit out from that. Now though, it practically goes from my belly button on the front and back, gets ten times worse around my groin, but still hurts like… I don’t even know what all the way to about half way down my thighs.”

“Okay, so what exactly did the doctor you saw the first time tell you to do. Or what did they do?”

“Ummmm, it was Dr. Bryant, I think, and he said he didn't think there was anything wrong with my leg, that it was my hamstrings and a lack of abdominal strength."

Jack’s eyebrows shot up and both Henry and Kai looked mildly horrified at what she was saying. Just then there was a knock on the door and an anxious looking Hank walked in. He bit his lip and quickly walked over to give her a hug before saying “I’m thrilled to see you after a month, but I was really hoping it wasn’t you that the nurse told me was my next consult.”

Chloe gave him an understanding, almost half smile and Hank gave JJ a quick hug too before looking at Jack and Chloe, “So? What’s going on?”

Jack nodded “We hadn’t gotten too far yet, we just went over what happened and we were going over how her first visit went when you walked in.”

“Oh?”

Jack quickly ran over everything they’d covered so far and Hank nodded and then Jack nodded at Chloe “Okay, can you go back over what Dr. Bryant said for Hank?”

Chloe bit her lip but nodded and said “He basically said he didn’t think anything was really wrong, and that  _ maybe _ I’d pulled a muscle but that pulled muscles in your groin were particularly painful, and to put ice on it and take advil as needed. Then he said that most likely my problem was a lack of hamstring and abdominal strength, and that’s when he told me he wanted me to do PT.”

Hank’s face mirrored what the other boys’ had looked like “Seriously? Did he do any kind of exam because I’m pretty sure that the 6-pack I know you have, have seen numerous times, does not equal a lack of abdominal strength.”

Chloe just shrugged and Hank sighed.

“Okay, but nothing about your adductors? Your groin? Pelvic region?"

Chloe rolled her eyes "No. I felt like he didn't listen to a word I said."

Hank frowned even more "Get an X-ray?"

Chloe shook her head “He didn’t even bring one up, both mom and I asked for an MRI, or asked why he wouldn’t need one, and tried to tell him that I’d had pulled muscles before and this felt 20 times worse, and I know that you guys have said for a muscular injury you can't see jack on an x-ray."

All four of the boys couldn’t contain their snickers and JJ smiled as well as Hank said “Well I'm glad you’ve at least picked up something from hanging around us.”

Hank couldn’t help but be happy she’d at least tried to advocate for herself because she was 100% right. An MRI was ten times more effective at correctly diagnosing muscle injuries as well as seeing upcoming issues. He wasn’t however happy with the completely failed treatment her first trip here based on what she said next.

"He said in 6 weeks if I was still in a lot of pain, then I could get an x-ray, but still didn’t even mention getting an MRI.

All of the boys were thinking the same thing ‘What kind of moron is this guy?’ 

Hank knew he’d never met or worked with the guy, but thank god because the guy was obviously an idiot.

Hank spoke up “that explains the lack of films in the folder the nurse gave me, I thought she was just being stupid for a minute or not paying attention.”

Chloe shook her head, “Nope.”

Hank groaned under his breath.

Chloe continued “But anyways, we waited for a week and a half to see if maybe I’d be in less pain then, but I wasn’t, and the exercises the PT was giving me really hurt, and if felt like I couldn’t even move enough to do half of them. We talked to the PT guy, but he said to just work through the pain, that I was fine. It was all in my head, that kind of thing. One of the worst ones though, there was another ortho doctor talking to him at the end of my session, and he finally offered to look at my case and do an X-ray so I would stop trying to say that it wasn’t in my head.” She rolled her eyes “Whatever the reason though, I finally actually got one, and he apologized for not believing me, and said I screwed up my pubic symphysis, and that it was probably a basic case of… oste-uh… osteitis pubis?”

Jack and Henry both nodded, that sounded about right, finally.

Hank gave her a tentatively hopeful look “did he get an MRI for you after that?”

Chloe shook her head “Nope, after that he just said to keep taking Advil and icing it.”

Hank groaned under his breath again “Alright, I’m not even going to bother trying to hunt down the x-rays, I’m just going to order an MRI right now because this is absurd, and you need one.”

Chloe nodded and glanced towards Jack “In the nicest way possible, and not that I don’t love you, but how exactly is bones your problem?”

Jack smiled “Not offended, promise, and mostly because it’s the right area of the body that I specialize in, and…”

He shot a glare at all three boys and muttered “If any of you laugh I’ll slap you.” before continuing and looking at Chloe, “Because the muscles of the groin are generally covered in, and yes this is a legitimate field, sexology or by a sexologist, which is a subcategory of gynecology, that I just so happen to have one of my thirty million specialities and degrees in.”

Chloe almost wanted to laugh at the name of this field and all of the boys were very obviously fighting to not laugh making Jack roll his eyes at them, but Chloe didn’t laugh and just flushed a near fushia color.

“But this doesn’t have anything to do with sex?” Chloe bit her lip before swallowing and continuing “And I can assure you that nothing of the sort has happened since my fall, because just walking and standing hurts way too damn much.”

JJ blushed at her daughter’s words and Henry shifted behind her, slightly awkward as always at the idea of his sister having sex at 16, but Jack gave her a reassuring smile, it was a very valid question. 

“Okay, first of all, I want to say it’s just an unfortunately named field because of what that implies, and I’m not trying to say that sex has anythign to do with your current injury, but what I am trying to get at is that your problem may contribute to or be exasperbated by internal pelvic weaknesses. In other words if the muscles on the superior portion or the outside of your pubic bone are hurting you, and are weakened from lack of use- and I mean muscles that attach there, your leg muscles, abdominal muscles- the muscles inside on the underside of you pubic bone or surrounding may be forced to pick up the slack- which can cause compensatory damage."

Chloe blinked at him and then said slowly… “In English?”

All three of the other boys burst out laughing and Jack groaned and said “While the 10-year-olds over there recompose themselves, right, sorry, in its most basic terms, until we figure out exactly which muscles and parts of your groin have been damaged, this injury could cause damage to your vagina, your perineum and anus, which is why I come in.”

Chloe just blinked at him again with a slightly twisted up expression on her face but nodded slightly and said “Oh.”

Jack nodded “Right, so you see, this injury has the potential to cause a lot of damage. And what obviously the dorkos over here, and the nurses didn’t tell you when they paged me, was that I need to check what may have been damaged internally, by examining you, to check for muscular weakness."

Chloe jerked her head back slightly “Wait, what?”

Jack just pursed his lips slightly as the other guys waited silently, they’d all been waiting for Jack to have to drop this news on her once they found out just how much Dr. Bryant hadn’t done.

Chloe finally sighed, obviously not liking the idea, but resigned to it because she wanted the pain to stop “Okay.”

Jack nodded and rubbed her shoulder. “Okay, well first of all who do you want to stay?”

Chloe reached behind her slightly to take hold of Henry’s hand in a death grip, wide eyed at the prospect of him leaving, and then her eyes darted to her mom and back to Jack, who smiled slightly at her. “Okay, Kai, Hank, out.”

The two boys gave Chloe sympathetic kisses on the top of her head as they passed, and gently rubbed her free hand before exiting the room.

Once they were gone, Henry and Jack helped her gingerly move over and back on the bed slightly, so she could lay back.

”Allright, well I'm going to start off doing an internal exam, testing the strength of your pelvic floor muscles. It's similar to a pelvic exam, but not quite the same as. I need to see if any one area hurts more than another, which means I'll need to do various positioning inside of you. This isn't an extremely common exam, but I promise I know what I’m doing, and with the apparent severity here, I feel this is the best route."

Chloe nodded slightly numbly and Jack moved around the room, unlocking a drawer and pulling out a vial of something and a needle. Chloe looked back at him slightly anxiously and tensed a little bit, but he gave her a reassuring smile.

“It’s just a prescription painkiller, it’ll go into your IV if another shot is what you're worried about.”

Chloe nodded and relaxed slightly as Jack picked up her IV that the nurses had placed when she was admitted earlier, and injected the painkiller, hoping it would take effect as quickly as possible, and make his exam at least… mostly, bearable.

Finally, he and Henry stepped out for a second so JJ could help her get her shorts and underwear off and covered with a sheet before they came back in. Chloe leaned back into her brother again and JJ sat in one of the family chairs next to her bed, holding her hand.

Jack got to work, not wanting to make her even more anxious from waiting, and trying to push down the hurt and guilt he felt for the pain he knew he was inflicting on his little sister.

After a little bit, Jack could see Chloe’s toes curling up, and hear her sniffling, hear both JJ and Henry trying to soothe her.

"You doing okay?" He asked, he knew he’d have to finish the exam if any of the issues she wanted any hope of her pain being resolved, but the guilt was still eating away at him. Chloe was one of the toughest girls he’d ever met, whether that was just her, or her gymnastics training, or her dance training seeing as she’d only quit that to focus on gymnastics 2 years prior, he didn’t know exactly, but he hated that he was inflicting this much pain on her.

"Uh huh." Her voice made it sound as if her head, which Jack knew would be streaked with tears, was across a room, not a mere couple of feet across an exam table.

He knew she meant she was not in so much pain that she couldn’t stand it, not that she wasn't in pain; she was very obviously in pain.

Jack gave her a lot of credit though, most women would be yelling in pain by this point in the exam, including those who had gone through childbirth.

He couldn’t really remove his hands from what they were doing, but seeing as this exam was almost entirely by feel and there really wasn’t anything for him to look at, he turned his head and gently pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee.

"Just try and stay as relaxed as possible," he kept his voice calm, "this will all be over soon."

From under the drape Jack could see Chloe’s stomach rise, and heard her take a shaky breath in. With what he was doing to her vaginal wall now, he had no doubts she was in too much pain to try and answer, lest a yell come out instead.

"I'm sorry," he apologized beforehand, "this last manipulation is going to be uncomfortable, but then it’ll be over." He was silent for a moment, allowing Chloe time to brace herself for the pain, then continued, "Just take a deep breath in, breath out, and hold real still for me.'

A tiny moan of fear reached his ears as he saw Chloe’s toes curl more tightly. He heard Chloe take a breath in and then slowly let it out. As she did, Jack firmly rotated his hand inside Chloe.”

He couldn't help wincing and cringing, and biting his own lip in mute sympathy as Chloe screamed out, trying to back away involuntarily in a flight survival response. Henry held her firmly against his chest, lest she do more damage to herself be trying to jerk away.

Jack removed his hand and slowly eased her legs back flat, putting the ice pack he’d had to move, back in place.

Jack stood up and took his gloves off and washed his hands before turning back to Chloe trying to shove the complete, gut turning pain and guilt that was overwhelming him at what he had to do to her. When he saw the tears still dripping down her face, he made a completely and entirely unprofessional decision, even if he was technically her doctor at the moment, rather than acting as her brother, and supposed to be detached and clinical, and sat down on the bed next to her where Henry had helped her sit up, and pulled his face into his chest wrapping his arms around her body tightening his arms around her back and resting his head on top of her, whispering soothing, comforting words, apologies for hurting her, promising he would do everything he could to make this better for her, telling her he loved her, anything he could think of until her tears finally stopped coming, and she sniffled slightly, her face still pressed into his shoulder.

JJ and Henry watched the scene with sad smiles on their faces. Both the experienced profiler and her son could see the determination on his face, determination to help his little sister, but also the incredible guilt and pain overlaying that on his features, his tense facial position screaming his fears about how to help Chloe, and what JJ could tell by how he held her daughter, was his fear that Chloe would push him away, that him causing her such incredible pain, would strain their relationship. JJ could have told him it wouldn’t, could have promised him anything, but she knew it wouldn’t have mattered, he wouldn’t have believed it unless Chloe said that, and even then, she knew he would still feel incredibly guilty.

After a while, the two separated, and Jack slid his professional masks back in place, almost as well as Emily, that was obviously a learned trait from both of his parents, JJ thought with mild amusement. He sent her to get an MRI, and said he would look over them that night with Hank if his orthopedic knowledge was needed. Chloe had accepted that, and gone for the MRI. Just as she was returning to the room, Emily called JJ, who frowned, praying they didn’t have a case she needed to come in on, because at this point she didn’t think she’d be able to leave her daughter.

“Jareau.”

“Hey JJ, we’re all heading home from work, and we were thinking that it might be fun to have a party, family dinner type thing for the guys, if you’re available and think they would be too?”

JJ sighed, she hadn’t expected that. “Uhmmm, Chloe and I are actually at the hospital right now, with the boys, she got hurt at her meet a few weeks back and hasn’t been getting better, but I can see if she’s up for it or the boys are interested.”

“Oh no! If she’s not up for it, we don’t have to do anything tonight, or we could go to your house instead of ours so she doesn’t have to leave the house if she doesn’t want to. What’s wrong?”

JJ sighed “We don’t exactly know yet, the first doctor we saw right when it happened was an idiot.”

Henry and Jack both snorted at her words from where they were locking Chloe’s bed back in place and she rolled her eyes “Oh shut up you two.”

Emily looked at her phone confused and asked “What?”

JJ sighed “Not you, our sons found my comment entertaining, though it’s true, but anyways, I have faith they’ll figure out what’s wrong with her and actually help her. She just got back from an MRI, so I’ll see if she’s up for it.”

Emily agreed “Okay, let me know either way, and if she’s not up for it, it’s really not a problem.”

“Alright Em, talk to you later.”

They hung up and JJ gently rubbed Chloe’s shoulder “Hey Chlo?”

“Yeah?”

“Emily called, they’re all getting ready to leave work, but she asked if we wanted to be in on some kind of party or dinner or something for the boys since we didn’t do much when they flew in, but if you’re not up for it, I can tell her we can’t go.”

Chloe bit her lip “I mean… I want to… but it hurts so much… I don’t think I could even sit there long enough without wanting to go lay down.”

JJ tilted her head “It’s up to you, but if you want, everyone can come over to our house instead of Emily and Hotch’s, then you can go to bed whenever you want?”

Chloe bit her lip but nodded after a second “Yeah, okay.”

JJ looked up at Jack and Henry who nodded “Yeah, sounds good.”

\-----------------------------------------------

After Chloe and JJ left, Jack filled the other boys in on most of what he’d found, specifically Hank, and told them to go to JJ and Will’s house after work for dinner and a party or whatever they had planned.

Henry was anxious to get back to see his sister, and the other boys did too, so once Jack got a copy of her MRI images in a folder for him to take home, and had them pinged up to her electronic file so he could look at them on his tablet later if he needed to move them around or to zoom in on one spot, the 4 boys closed up their offices and headed out of the hospital and straight over to the LaMontagne house.

The team had beaten them there, so when they entered and set their backpacks down in the entrance to the living room, the team was all up and thrilled to see them again, having only seen them all briefly at the airport, after that they’d separated to have dinners with their parents or individual parts of the big extended family. 

Jack stepped out of Penelope’s rib crushing hug as JJ entered the living room with a new ice pack to replace one of Chloe’s that had melted, and handed her another dose of Advil, and Jack frowned. He’d meant to write a prescription for Chloe once he’d looked over her MRI with Hank, but had forgotten to before they left the hospital, and now looking at her laying on the couch, it was obvious she needed something stronger than that, painfully obvious. Jack was half tempted to write a script for the strongest narcotic pain reliever he could think of, but with what he knew of Chloe being stubborn, and her aversion to any narcotic after she’d had a bad reaction to one when she shattered her fibula when a shelf fell on her when she was 9, and refused to go through that again, he knew there was no chance he would be able to put her on any opioid strength narcotic.

The team was all very obviously worried about Chloe, and unfortunately neither she, nor the four doctors, were doing a good job at hiding their pain, or worry about her pain, respectively, which wasn’t helping. Finally, after dinner that they had eaten in the living room so Chloe didn’t have to move from the couch, Jack decided he was going to go clinically nuts if he had to see her in that much pain anymore and wasn’t trying to figure out how to help so while everyone was chatting and relaxing with the Nationals game on TV, he got up and went over to Hotch.

“Hey dad, can I use your office for a little bit?”

Hotch looked up at his son and frowned but nodded “Yeah, of course, something wrong.”

Jack sighed and said “Fine” in a way that told his dad that it was the opposite of fine, but he wasn’t going to actually answer, so Aaron didn’t push and just nodded his assent. Jack grabbed Hank’s attention and motioned for him to follow him, and grabbed his backpack from where it was sitting, and Hank followed him into Aaron’s office.

“What’s up, Jack?”

Jack sighed “I wanted to look over Chloe’s MRI pictures with you, every time I look over at her I just can’t stop thinking about how I need to be trying to help her.”

Hank completely understood, he was feeling the same way, so nodded with an easy, assuring smile. “Then get ‘em out, we’ll look everything over.”

Jack nodded and pulled the paper file out and set that on the coffee table and then pulled Chloe’s file up on his tablet and got the electronic pictures from there as well. Hank grabbed the paper ones because he wouldn’t need to zoom in or anything to see her pubic bones. 

After a few minutes he set them back on the table and leaned back in his chair “Well shit.”

Jack looked up with a frown. “I won’t be able to tell for sure without an exam, but I’m pretty sure the bones themselves have started getting inflamed.”

Jack tensed and threw the pen in his hand with a rather loud “GODDAMNIT!”

Hank set a hand on his friend’s knee “Jack, we all want to help her just as much as you do, but putting a dent in your dad’s wall isn’t going to help. No, these pictures don’t look good, and yes, the first doctor who saw her should have done more, but he didn’t and we can’t change that. We can, however, figure out how to help her start healing, focus on that Jack.”

Out in the living room, the entire group had frozen when they heard Jack’s yell. Some were wide eyed in shock as Jack didn’t usually curse around them, but if he did it wasn’t with that much anger. The other faces were all formed to concern, namely Emily, Hotch, Henry, and Kai.

Henry and Kai exchanged looks and Kai muttered “I got 5 dollars says Dr. Bryant doesn’t have a job tomorrow.”

The group all frowned but Henry shook his head “Chloe won’t let him fire the dolt for that.”

JJ gasped “Henry!”

Henry turned an incredulous look on his mom “We weren’t even there and we can tell he’s a moron, you were there!”

“He was a first year doctor there, let him at least have a chance.”

Henry opened his mouth to furiously rebut her but then blinked and stopped “Wait what? Where the hell was his attending then?”

JJ frowned “I don’t know. One of the nurses implied the ER was really really busy though, maybe his attending let him consult on his own?”

Henry unintentionally repeated Jack without even realizing it as he muttered under his breath “Goddammit, that’s not supposed to happen.”

Hotch stood up “Alright, well I’m going to go see if there’s another hole in my office wall.”

He walked out of the room and all eyes turned to Emily “Another hole?”

Emily snorted “Those walls have taken a lot of abuse over the years, Jack’s put holes in at least 2 or three of the sides, one of them, the one with the door in it two, and Aaron put a hole in one once. All of them because when Jack was a teenager, you guys thought you saw the tension between them sometimes, those two could make the whole house frosty for days at a time, and neither one was capable of admitting they were wrong for the longest time.”

Everyone looked surprised at that, Jack was as kind and gentle as they came, but he had a temper on a bomb fuse. He was good at keeping his anger or frustration under control for a long time until something big tipped him over the edge, and he exploded. His anger burned quickly, but furiously, and god help you if you were on the wrong side of him when he did. Hotch though, other than occasionally when Jack was pushing all of his buttons as a teenager, they’d hardly ever seen him lose his ever famous control and even temper.

Dave’s curiosity won out “Why did Aaron put a hole in the wall, he never told me about that.”

Emily hesitated but then remembered everyone knew anyways and sighed “It was when Jack told us Mikayla was pregnant.”

The whole group went wide eyed and nodded slightly, remembering what Jack had told them so long ago.

Down the hallway, Hotch knocked on his office door and slowly pushed it open to make sure there was nothing flying at the door, before entering and shutting the door behind himself. “Everything okay?”

Jack grumbled under his breath but said “We were just looking over Chloe’s MRIs.”

Hotch felt worry gnaw at his gut “That bad?”

Jack sighed “Hank won’t be able to tell for sure without another exam, but yeah, it looks like it. It’s just, it could have already been bad when she first went to the doctor, but it wasn’t this bad. It’s not possible, and from what she’s said, some of this happened as a direct result of the doctor just completely neglecting imaging and exams he should have done right then. She would have been in half as much pain then, not to where she can’t hardly move, like now. I mean the physical therapy he put her on I can already tell caused a lot of inflammation, her body couldn't handle that stuff yet but he didn’t listen and just assumed it was a pulled muscle.”

Jack snorted “Well, in a way he was right, because at this point my imaging looks like it’s about 100 pulled muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Her pubic symphysis is screwed up, and just looking at her, before I even saw the MRI, I wanted to put her on a strong narcotic pain reliever, but she’ll never go for that, and looking at these now, I just want to even more. Advil is guaranteed doing the equivalent of me taking a child’s tylenol during one of my worst migraines, aka, nothing.”

Jack sighed and slumped in his seat. “I just don’t want her to be in so much pain.”

Hotch set his hands on Jack’s shoulder. “Of course not, because you’re a good doctor, and she’s practically your little sister, and that’s okay. But don’t focus on that, focus on how you can help her, what can you do so she’s not in so much pain?”

Jack bit his lip and went back to manipulating and zooming and studying Chloe’s MRI.

Finally, after Aaron had left, and the two had been thinking silently, Hank spoke up “I hate to say it, but I don’t think that any of this is really my field. The bones being so inflamed are a little bit my field, assuming the MRI is displaying that accurately, but even then, I can’t really do much other than a watch and wait to even try to see if the bones start healing, until the tissues start healing and some of that inflammation goes down, I mean, this is an obvious, hellish, case of pubic symphasitis.”

Jack nodded “Yeah, I see that, but I still think you might be useful once we can start narrowing down her pain, because she said her lower back was hurting too. I think my first steps though need to be, number one, figuring out some kind of pain meds to put her on, and number two, doing another external exam to find patterns or weaknesses, and see how her muscles are actually feeling to the touch.”

Hank nodded “I agree, I think she’s not going to like it anymore than her exam today, but she’ll do it, she can’t live like this.”

Jack nodded “Okay, so…. Pain meds, NSAIDs…. Especially anti-inflammatory… Ketoprofen, maybe? It’s a good first line med, known for being a strong anti-inflammatory, generally given in smaller doses to start with, but if we up that right off the bat, it might help a little bit?”

Hank nodded “Yeah, it might, but I’m still not sure it would really even be doing enough.”

Jack sighed “I don’t feel like any NSAID is going to do enough, I would be prescribing morphine for this any other time but I know she won’t take that.”

Hank hesitated “It’s not recommended, but for only a few days until you can get some more treatment ideas figured out, doubling up on two maybe?”

Jack frowned “It’s an idea, it’s risky though, two NSAIDs at once isn’t usually recommended as a good idea, only in really rare cases where the pain relieving effects outweigh…. the potential risks...and I think they just might here. Do you have another one in mind specifically?”

“I was thinking maybe Celecoxib?”

Jack raised his eyebrows “Well… actually, maybe, that might work, but I don’t know about the side effects of overlapping those two specifically.”

Hank nodded “Didn’t Kai go to that prescription conference in California right before we went to South Africa?”

Jack looked thoughtful, “Yeah, that’s right, let’s go ask him.”

Hank nodded and the two left their stuff in the office but went back to the living room and sat facing him from the couch next to his, “Kai?”

Kai nodded and Hank continued “Jack and I were talking, you went to the cdc and prescription meds education conference before we left right?”

Kai nodded, and Jack spoke this time. “I know I could never get Chloe to accept morphine or another similarly strong opioid, but what about Ketoprofen and Celecoxib?”

Kai raised his eyebrows, “You mean doubling them?”

Jack nodded “A basic dose of a basic NSAID isn’t going to cover this amount of pain, I was hoping those two would, but it’s slightly risky, so I was hoping you’d have a thought.”

Kai nodded “Right well I mean you do risk any of the normal potential side effects, but if it were for a short enough time, I’d say in someone as strong and healthy as her, the risks are lower than they otherwise might be, even overlapping the drugs.”

Chloe had drifted into sleep on the sofa, and when she woke up, Jack talked over with her what he wanted, and she agreed to the pain relievers, though she wasn’t quite sure about yet another exam, JJ convinced her there, saying she couldn’t live like this, it wasn’t making her happy or healthy.

Chloe finally gave in but said “Is there any chance you can just do it tonight, I don’t want to have to go back into the hospital  _ again _ tomorrow.”

Jack and Hank exchanged glances “I mean, yeah, we could, but, would you be comfortable doing it here or something?”

Chloe nodded “Yeah, I’d rather just do it here once everyone else has gone home. Wait what do you mean we?”

“I want Hank to look at your lower back as well.”

Chloe sighed “Yeah, okay.”

Once the team had gone, and just the boys were left with Chloe and JJ, even Emily and Hotch having retired to their own house next door, Jack approached Chloe again. “You actually want to do this here? You’re sure?”

Chloe nodded and Jack looked at JJ “Where do you want us to go?”

“I mean, her bedroom would probably be easiest, unless you’d rather not?”

Jack shook his head, “No, that’s fine if Chloe’s okay with it.”

Chloe nodded and Jack went to help her stand up, but quickly realized it was a ridiculous and unnecessary process, and bent down, sliding his arms under her and picking her up as gently as humanly possible to take her upstairs.

Hank followed her up there, and once he’d laid her down on the bed, gave in to her point that she couldn’t get her pants off by herself, so Jack helped her, and then gently helped her lay back and moved her legs around as delicately as he could.

"Okay, Chloe, I'm going to be palpating your pubic bone and groin, very gently. Of course this area is so superficial I could make any spot hurt if I tried, but I would never do that, though some spots might be tender just due to their bony protrusions, but if anything hurts just from light touch, you let me know."

Chloe looked fearful. "All those places hurt," she whispered.

he

Jack gave a sympathetic smile. "They might," he answered, "but I need to check and see if there's a pattern, or just make note of exactly what areas hurt."

Chloe looked away, and Jack could tell from her expression that she did not want to do this. "Chlo," he spoke up before beginning, "I need you to look at me."

Jack began on the outer left edge of the pelvis, right into her side. Chloe winced sharply, pulling away from his hand. Jack was both stunned and horrified, and exchanged glances with Hank.

He moved his hand, following along the outer rim of Chloe’s pelvis. Every single spot he touched made Chloe wince with pain. The closer Jack came to the musculature of the pubic symphysis, the more pain Chloe was in, and this time Jack released his sigh audibly..

"Extreme sensitivity over the pubic symphysis." He noted aloud to Hank.

He looked back to Chloe. "Now I'd like to look at the groin attachments where your leg muscles connect to your pelvis."

He gently motioned for Chloe to bend her leg up, then let it fall out, with his assistance, letting it rest against Hank, of course- he sure didn't want to add more problems. 

Jack’s hand moved again from where he was touching and she yelped. 

Jack hesitated but said "I take it that spot hurts, too?"

"That hurts the worst," she answered. "My inner thighs are the worst."

"And this started on the inside of your right hip? Then what?"

"Then my right leg, in the same spot, then my abs, then my pubic bone."

It went untreated for too long. Now, from lack of support and proper treatment, and poor treatment, a torn leg muscle had developed into full blown pubic symphasitis, and Jack was cursing the doctor who’d seen her the first time.

Sure enough, as Jack checked all the tiny tendons and muscles that attached at the pubic bone, each one was extremely sensitive, hot to the touch, and painful for Chloe.

"I can see why you've been sitting on ice," Jack muttered.

"Does it hurt underneath your pubic bone?" he asked out loud.

Chloe nodded. "Yeah. Inside. It hurts everywhere. At the base of my pubic bone, the front of the bone, the top, underneath, and inside."

Hank muttered to Jack quietly “the bones are definitely inflamed.”

Jack nodded and gently set her leg back down before rubbing her knee “Chloe, can you roll over on your stomach for me please?"

With some difficulty, and pinching her eyes shut, Chloe complied.

Hank stepped over to run his hands over her lower back and hip bones from that side proved just as painful as everywhere else. Both doctors sighed and Jack delicately touched her, helping her roll back over.

“Okay Chlo, I want to do one more check for internal muscular damage and then we’ll be done poking you.”

Chloe sighed but nodded and allowed Jack to lift her legs up and open slightly, and tried not to flinch away from him palpating her pubic region.

It didn't take long for Jack to figure out that the outer muscular damage had caused internal issues as well. Simply pressing one finger at the very base of Chloe’s vaginal opening Jack was shocked again at the tense musculature.

"Chloe, do you feel that?"

He looked up and saw Chloe nodding.

"That hurt?"

Chloe looked at him like he was an idiot for even asking. "Yeah," she answered.

"Do you know what I'm pressing on?"

"That's a bone, right? Like the bottom part of my pelvis?"

Jack shook his head and exchanged a look with Hank, "No, Chlo, what you feel me pressing on, that thing that feels hard as a bone, is your muscle. That muscle is supposed to be smooth and flat, which as you can tell, it's definitely not."

Chloe looked at him wide eyed. "Shit," she answered. "That's really bad, isn't it?"

Jack pulled his lips between his teeth but nodded slightly, and asked "You’re still having bad pain inside your vagina?”

She nodded. "A lot. It still feels like being stabbed with a knife."

Jack frowned and finished what he was checking, before helping her lay her legs back down and put her underwear and shorts back on.

Hank helped her wrap the ice back around herself that he’d brought up while Jack carried her. Jack gently tucked her blankets around her in and put her phone next to her. “We’re going to go back down and talk to your mom, text someone if you need something, okay?”

Chloe nodded and let her eyes drift shut, exhausted from the day.

Downstairs, Jack and Hank found JJ, Kai, and Henry in the living room. The second they sat down, all three turned to them for information. Jack looked at JJ “Okay, the first thing I think that’s important is that I want to put her on prescription pain meds, I’m not putting her on any kind of narcotic or steroid, but I want to give her two NSAIDs, at least for a little while, to attempt to control some of the pain. Generally, it’s not recommended to be taking two at once, unless the pain-management benefits outweigh the possible risks, and to be honest, I think it does in her case.”

JJ nodded slowly “Okay… what are some of the possible risks?”

“Pretty much any normal potential side effect, just increased some because you're doubling the amount of painkillers. Nausea, diarrhea, fever, headache, potential internal bleeding of the GI tract.”

JJ swallowed, “Right, as terrifying as internal bleeding sounds, I’m going to agree to that, just because I know she’s tough, and I hate seeing her in this much pain.”

Jack nodded “Right, I’ll give you a prescription for her for both of them, but what I’m worried about is, her pelvic floor, and pubic area, has been, and I mean this in the gentlest way possible, but has been destroyed. It’s really badly injured.”

JJ’s mouth widened slightly and she pressed a hand over her face as she looked at Jack “Please tell me there’s something you can do to fix it?”

Jack nodded “Yeah, there’s a couple of things that should work, but JJ, both of them, are complete and utter hell for the patient to go through. Even for women who’ve given birth before, some of them say it’s pain they never could have even imagined was possible. Chloe’s in a lot of pain now, but for the few hours it takes for me to do anything, this pain will be  _ nothing _ , compared to that.”

JJ bit her finger as tears filled her eyes, “But after that, after the procedure, she won’t be in so much pain right?”

Jack shook his head, “No, she’ll have about another month of healing but her pain will be fractions of what it is now, and after that she’ll have to slowly start physical therapy to rebuild some of those muscles, once her muscles have healed, believe me, I’m not going to have her even try anything, until I’m sure, that everything is as healed as it needs to be.”

JJ still bit her knuckle with tears in her eyes, even as she said, “I want you to do whatever you have to, I want you to help her. What kind of procedure do you have to do?”

“There’s two stages to what I would need to do. The first focuses on treating the internal weaknesses and on her pelvic floor, which so I would inject lidocaine first and then meperidine which is an opioid analgesic and a strong pain reliever, and will also work to get some of the tension in her muscles to ease up and go back into place. Then, a couple of days later for the second procedure I’ll go through with her and mark spots every inch or so along her pubic bone that are causing her the most pain, and I’ll draw blood from her arm, spin it down to isolate the portions richest with platelets, and then we’ll do a lidocaine injection into each spot, and then a PRP injection, which reinjects her own platelet rich plasma, into the torn and weakened tendons and tissues to help get them to start healing. I know, it sounds like a lot of injections, and it is, which is why it hurts so bad, but if we can get through both procedures, she should be on the road to healing pretty quickly, and within about a month should be doing much better than she is now.”

JJ looked slightly horrified but finally asked “What did you mean  _ if _ you can get through both procedures?”

Jack frowned “Well I mean first of all, for this kind of procedure, I’m not going to do it if Chloe won’t agree to it, and second, there have been occasional times where I’ve done the procedure, and the patient couldn’t handle it past the first few shots and made me stop. I wasn’t exaggerating, this is a hellishly, excruciating procedure.”

JJ swallowed hard but nodded, “We’ll see what she says then. How soon would you need to do it.”

“Ideally, we’d do the first part tomorrow, and the second part within a week after that, but preferably about 2 or 3 days later.”

“Tomorrow?” JJ croaked out.

Jack nodded “I know, and if she’s not ready for that, we can wait, but the sooner we start the sooner she’ll be out of pain. Talk it over with Will tomorrow, and talk it over with Chloe, or if you want me to be a part of both of those conversations, I can be, and we’ll push it back a day so you can think about it, if Chloe agrees, we’ll say Thursday for the first part.”

JJ nodded and said “Yeah, okay, uhm, we’ll ask you if we have questions once I’ve talked to Will.”

Jack nodded and stood up, walking towards her and wrapping his arms around her tightly. He whispered down to her “You know I would never do anything to hurt her unnecessarily, and that this is what will help her get better. Just trust me with her.”

JJ nodded against his shoulder and whispered back “Always, it’s just hard to think about my little baby girl in pain like this.”

Jack nodded and straightened back up, getting ready to head back to his and Henry’s house, and Hank and Kai also grabbed their backpacks. Henry was going to stay just in case she needed something while Will was on shift.

The next morning, JJ called Hotch to tell him she’d be late and mostly just sat anxiously waiting until a decent time to get Will up, and when she finally did, he was equally as anxious as her, but he knew it would be best for his daughter. Later that morning, all 4 members of the LaMontagne family sat in the living room to talk about it. Chloe was terrified at what her parents and brother had explained to her as would be her best treatment option, and she desperately wanted to say yes, but she was so scared, and she knew Henry hadn’t even explained everything Jack would have to do, she knew she would say yes though, so she finally nodded her head just a little bit and whispered out quietly “okay.”

The next day, JJ called off of work completely. She knew she was starting to worry the team because she hadn’t been answering any of their texts other than to tell them that yes everyone was okay, but no, they couldn’t come over and no, she wasn’t going to explain why she called off. So, they were just finishing another discussion, but this time in Jack’s office around noon, and with Henry, Chloe, JJ, and Jack all involved. As they ended JJ asked Jack another couple of questions.

“How long do you think today’s part is going to be?”

Jack thought for a moment “It depends on a couple of things, but very easily 3 or 4 hours at least.”

Chloe gasped and JJ looked surprised, before asking “What might happen, not like a this-went-really-wrong kind of thing, but potential side effects kind of thing?”

“This is probably going to sound really scary, but it’s not as bad as it sounds, if she would have an adverse reaction to the lidocaine, there is the slightest chance she could not be able to speak if it freezes some of the nerves and signals responsible for that, but that goes away within a few minutes. There’s also a chance of a perineal tear, but that’s very easy to suture together, a large portion of women who give birth naturally tear their perineum, but that can be stitched back and healed very easily, and quickly.”

“What kind of pain management are you using.”

“So that’s partially up to Chloe. We can try a low dose pain med, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The lidocaine will numb the specific area for the muscle relaxant, but it won’t be numb before the lidocaine. We could also call an anesthesiologist up to do a spinal nerve block. They usually help some, but it won’t block all the pain.”

Chloe bit her lip “That, I guess.”

Jack nodded “Okay, we’ll have one come up here, because between the four of us, we can do a lot, but anesthesiology is definitely not of those things, so we’ll bring one up to do that.”

“Who can be in there with her?” JJ asked.

Jack pursed his lips slightly “If you’re asking if you can be in there, you can, but I wouldn’t recommend it because it’s going to be really hard to watch, and it’s up to Chloe anyways because unlike a regular exam, I can’t really cover her up so if there’s another person in there, they’re probably going to be able to completely seeing what I’m doing.”

Chloe swallowed somewhat anxiously at that and bit her lip. JJ sensed her daughter’s unease, and though she wished she could be in there with her for this painful procedure, she was a little worried about how she would react to seeing her daughter in that much pain, and she knew how close her daughter was with her older brother, and that she probably wanted him in there even more, especially with him being a doctor. JJ gave Chloe a gentle smile “If you don’t me in there, I promise I don’t mind, or if you’d rather have Henry in there I’m not offended, just choose what would make you comfortable.”

Chloe’s eyes darted to her brother really quickly before biting her lip and glancing at her mom and nodding slightly. Henry looked surprised at her choice, but he wasn’t going to deny her this, because he knew more than Chloe, or even JJ realized, just how bad this was going to be, because he’d been in the room for one once before. One of his patients had needed it done, but had an intense fear of doctors that he was working with her on, but she had wanted him the room for it and he’d agreed.

Henry nodded “I don’t want you to feel pressured one way or another, but if you want me in there I will be.”

Chloe nodded slightly and JJ reached over to rub her daughter’s shoulder. “I’ll just wait outside then, Chlo.”

Jack and Henry helped her into an exam room after JJ gave her one more encouraging hug, and then the two boys helped her get undressed and put on a gown so that they would be able to do the spinal block. The anesthesiologist arrived, and the block went without fanfare, so in accordance with Chloe’s requests, Henry sat on the bed behind her, allowing her head to lay in his lap, and then Jack pulled his two trays over to her feet and put her feet up in the stirrups as gently as he could. He pulled his first pair of gloves on and made sure everything was on his tray where he wanted it, and enough of everything. There were vials of lidocaine, syringes, vials of meperidine, betadine, gloves, and in case he tore Chloe’s perineum during the procedure, a suture kit.

“Okay, Chloe, I’m just going to swab the outside area with betadine first, okay?”

Chloe nodded, and he could see it but he said “I need you to try you best to answer all of my questions with some kind of audible noise, just to make sure everything’s going okay, and I might not always be able to look up to see you nod, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Henry gently ran his hands through her hair that was flowing out over his legs, doing his best not to look at the needles that Jack was filling with lidocaine, and meperidine.

Finally, he turned back from the tray he was working on and spoke "Okay, Chloe, are you ready?"

Jack looked up. Chloe was staring right at the ceiling, hands clasped over her torso, with one of Henry's hands intertwined somehow, and his other hand running over her hair.

"I'll need you to hold really, really still," Jack reminded her. "These needles are going to be going into very sensitive areas. The last thing I want is for you to end up with a worse tear."

Chloe nodded, her muscles all so stiff, Jack and Henry could see them sticking out like bodybuilders’ muscles. 

"I'm going to inject the lidocaine first, so that the steroid won't hurt."

Henry looked away from his best friend and down to his little sister, watching her body, ready to move his hands to hold her more in place if she tried to flinch or scoot away.

Jack had to give her credit, she was more relaxed than he'd be if he was getting shots over and over in that sensitive of an area, then again, it was because she had no idea

Henry watched as Chloe sucked in a breath and let out a cry of pain. Jack saw her toes curl in the stirrups on his side.

"Just hold on," he murmured. "Stay still. Breathe."

It got worse as he pushed more of the solution. Henry tried not to see his little sister’s lip wobbling and quivering, or the tears in her eyes.

"Henry." Jack kept his voice low.

He looked down at Jack, only to see that Jack wasn't looking at him to give a direction. Then Henry realized that with a large needle now inserted now inside his little sister’s vagina, he wasn't about to take his eyes off the task at hand.

Henry remembered what Jack had quietly requested of him on their way in the room.

"Just breathe, Chlo," he spoke up. "Just take deep breaths in through your nose."

Her body still shook, just barely, her entire face screwed up, red with pain. He could tell how hard she was trying to, and was laying there still for the most part, crying.

Jack spoke up "Chloe, I need you to tell me when the burning sensation stops. Let me know when you can't feel it anymore."

Chloe looked like she was going to vomit.

Finally Jack asked, "Does it still hurt?"

It was clearly difficult for the girl laying there to speak through the pain. Slowly she tried to gather herself. She sniffled, swallowed the mucus in her mouth from held back tears and answered in a shaky voice, "Not that bad."

Not that bad compared to being stepped on by an elephant. Henry rolled his eyes, of course his sister would say that.

"Okay, I'll put in the steroid now."

The meperidine didn't take nearly as long.

"How are you feeling, Chloe?"

"Okay," she whispered.

"Good," Henry could hear the tiniest traces of relief in Jack’s voice, and he hated every moment of this, but somehow he knew it was worse for Jack, having to actually do the procedure, and knew that one word had relaxed him.

"Alright, I'm going to start the next one."

Henry was looking down at Chloe’s face, whose eyes were laser focused on the ceiling tile above her, at that moment. At Jack’s words, he watched Chloe’s face fall. Could almost hear her thoughts of dread and fear and oh god not again. Her lower lip puckered up and her mouth looked like an upside down U. She was dreading it, and Henry didn’t blame her one bit.

The second injection Chloe cried out loudly in pain, open mouthed, and instinctively tried to move back at the pain.

"Hold still!" Jack barked. "You have to hold still."

Henry sent Jack a glare for yelling at her, and then wished he could retract it as he saw even more guilt cloud his best friend, his brother’s, face. He knew Jack was trying to make this as easy and simple and the best it could go for Chloe, and if she moved, she could get hurt even worse with a needle inside of her.

Chloe was whimpering and crying without trying to stop it now.

Jack tried to sooth her "I know this really hurts, Chloe, but it's going to stop."

Chloe just kept crying.

Chloe continued to gasp in pain as the lidocaine burned into the delicate tissue.

When her gasping slowed, and her toes weren't so tightly clenched, Jack asked again if she could feel either the needle or the solution.

Chloe shook her head, and Jack injected the next shot of Meperidine.

Henry watched the tense muscles of Chloe’s body relax just barely visibly as the pain subsided somewhat.

"Okay, about six more to go."

This time, Henry’s face mirrored Chloe’s in his horror, either this was worse because it was his sister, probably, or he’d forgotten somewhat just how bad this was, also likely. He couldn’t fathom that they were only 25% done, but tried to think about it logically and realized that they’d only done two out of 8 sets, or 4 out of 16 shots. Henry glanced at his watch, they were already at 50 minutes. Each set was taking 25 minutes on average, for just two shots each, it was slow progress, slow, and painful as hell.

Slowly, oh so slowly, Jack got through the next two sets, and told Chloe they could take a couple of minute break now that they were halfway through. Chloe looked a mix of both fear, and relief at that statement. She was happy they were taking a break, but terrified they were only halfway done.

Henry watched as her hands and toes unclenched most of the way, and continued to try and run soothing, relaxing hands through her hair and down her scalp. Jack gently cleaned up the blood and felt around slightly, gently palpating some of Chloe’s muscles that he’d worked on versus not, and could half the tinge of a smile that came to his face.

“Chloe, your muscles have already started responding. That’s really good.”

Chloe blinked at him and opened her mouth to say something but then closed it and nodded, and Jack felt his heart stop for a second as he jumped towards the end of the table with her hand on it and pressed his finger into her wrist as he rapidly and anxiously said “Chloe?! Say something?”

Chloe hesitated but then said “Like what?”

Jack sighed in relief and his whole body slumped, even Henry, who didn’t know why Jack had freaked was tense and relaxed as his mind rapidly caught up, and realized Chloe had spoken.

Chloe blinked at both of them “What?”

Jack sighed “When you opened your mouth to say something but then didn’t and nodded instead, I thought you couldn’t speak.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Jack rubbed her shoulder “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. But what I was saying earlier was true, it is a really good thing. The muscle that was so hard the other day that you thought was a bone, it’s relaxed back to its normal position almost completely.”

“Oh… That’s good.”

Jack nodded “Very.”

Jack sat down and put a new pair of gloves on “Okay Chloe, half way done, you ready to keep going?”

Chloe bit her lip but quietly answered “Yeah.”

Jack picked up the next lidocaine shot, and inserted the needle, and Chloe cried out loudly and almost jerked away, but dug her fingers into Henry’s arms barely keeping herself still as she involuntarily trembled and tears poured back down her face.

Slowly, exhaustingly slowly, Jack worked through the next 7 shots, and just as they were at about 3 and a half hours total, Jack leaned over and got a towel from one of the trays cleaning up her blood that had puddled and pooled at different spots, as well as just residual streaks from where the injection spots were. He gently palpated along her right thigh and groin this time, relieved when it felt much better as well. He cleaned up the leftover betadine on her skin with a damp cloth that made Chloe whimper and twitch just slightly, but she stayed mostly slumped on the bed. There were still tears dripping down her face though, and Jack knew she would still be in a lot of pain, but by the end of the night, she would hopefully already be able to feel a slight difference in her level of pain.

He delicately moved her legs out of the stirrups, not quite sure how much of the spinal block was actually still working, and laid them flat on the table, pulling her gown back down to recover her. He dumped her blood soaked towels in the biohazard bin and the numerous needles into the sharps bin on the wall, before finally pulling his gloves off. He walked over to her and gently brushed a hand against her cheek making her open her eyes from where they’d been tightly pinched shut.

He could see the unfiltered hope, desperation that he was telling her she didn’t have to deal with that anymore, and he smiled. “We’re done Chlo. No more. That was all 16.”

Chloe let a massive smile cross her face as the last few tears dripped out of her eyes, but she let Henry clean them away and bend down to kiss her forehead. “You did so go baby girl, you were so good.”

Chloe frowned “But I was shaking and moving so much.”

Jack gently kissed her forehead and gave her a little smile, “Chlo, I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone handle that without moving or as well as you did, even women who have been through childbirth before. You were amazing.”

Chloe nodded and allowed her head to fall back into Henry’s lap. Her eyes fluttered shut and she mumbled something under her breath that neither doctor caught.

Henry brushed her hair back off of her sweaty face “What was that hun?”

“‘M really tired all of a sudden.”

Henry and Jack both smiled, and Jack gently rubbed her shoulder “Well, let’s get you dressed and then get you and your mom home so you can go to bed.”

Chloe groaned but allowed them to help her get dressed and sit up, and then stand up, and while it was still excruciating, she didn’t quite feel like she was going to pass out in pain from just taking one step, but she still leaned on Jack and Henry both for a lot of support as they went back to Jack’s office where JJ was waiting with an anxious posture, that relaxed immensely when she saw her daughter walking, if gingerly, and wrapped tight arms around her daughter’s body.

Jack spoke to JJ while Chloe leaned on her mom “We’re done for today. She’ll probably be very tired tonight and tomorrow, as the procedure is exhausting and very taxing on the body. She’ll still be in quite a bit of pain, but she should already be able to notice a slight difference in the level of pain in her muscles. I haven’t even touched her tendons and ligaments yet though, so she’ll still have trouble walking and be in quite a bit of pain. She needs to be limiting her movement as much as physically possible. Almost no standing or walking, limited sitting, any time it’s possible, and when it’s not try to make it possible, but she should be laying down. Even when she’s just sitting she’s putting pressure on the muscles that could make things start to freeze and shrink and tense up again and we don’t want to go backwards. No lifting, no bending, no separating her legs, not that I’d imagine that’s anywhere on her radar right now, but just for the record, that could make this even worse than before.”

JJ blushed at the message, but nodded and gently ran her hands up and down her daughter’s back.

Jack continued “Make sure she’s taking both of her painkillers. I was thinking if she can come back on Saturday around noon for the second procedure?”

JJ nodded “Yeah, that should be fine.”

Jack nodded “Okay, and make sure she takes both of them before that appointment as well.”

JJ agreed and with hugs for Chloe from both Jack, and Henry, they left.


	8. Healed

On Friday at work, JJ stopped in Hotch’s office before she left, and the man behind the desk looked up as she shut the door behind herself firmly, and perched on the edge of one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“JJ? What can I do for you?”

JJ bit her lip “I just wanted to let you know that I know we don’t have to come in tomorrow, but if we get called out on a case, I’m going to need another vacation day, I can’t come in, no matter what.”

Hotch frowned and said “Of course, I won’t file any paperwork for that unless we get a case, but it shouldn’t be a problem, you have more than enough days built up over the years.”

JJ nodded her appreciation, but before she could get up, Hotch spoke again in a gentler voice “JJ? I know you’ve told everyone you don’t want to say what’s going on, but everyone’s actually okay right? Nothing else has happened with Chloe? Henry? Will? You’re okay?”

JJ bit her lip but sighed and finally said “Chloe has another procedure tomorrow.”

“Another?”

JJ nodded “She had her first one yesterday.”

“If I can ask, what for?”

“Her injury, from her gymnastics meet, that you guys heard about at the dinner at our house. Jack’s not wasting time trying to get her treatment started.”

Hotch’s eyebrows raised “Jack’s doing the procedures? On Chloe? I’d imagine that’d be hard since she’s practically his little sister, aren’t there other OBGYNs in the hospital who could do them?”

JJ shook her head “From what I understand, it’s doubtful, but even if they could, Chloe would never let someone she didn’t know and trust do that to her. It’s a very, very painful procedure, and from what I’ve looked up about her second one, it’s going to be even worse. Which reminds me, maybe ask Jack to come over to your house tonight, Henry said he was not doing too well last night. He logically knows that he’s helping her, but when I was just outside the door, I could hear her cry out loud enough to hurt my ears. I had to go all the way into Jack’s office so I couldn’t hear it, because I couldn’t have handled that. I don’t know how he did it while giving her the injections.”

“What do you mean? Shouldn’t she be asleep for a procedure that painful sounding?”

JJ shook her head “No, she’s awake for the whole thing. She was diagnosed with a very severe case of pubic symphisitis, that’s the main thing at least, so yesterday the procedure was giving her injections of… meper, urgh, oh uh, meperidine, or something along those lines, but he had to apparently give her a lidocaine shot before every single one. Tomorrow he’ll draw blood, somehow isolate the plasma platelets or something and the giver her more injections of uh…. PRP, but he has to do lidocaine shots before every one of those too. Yesterday’s procedure took about 3 and a half hours, he said tomorrow’s would be worse though and probably take longer.”

Hotch paled slightly “More than 3 and a half hours of injections? Oh my god.”

Hotch pressed a hand against his mouth for a moment before swallowing roughly. “Okay, do you still not want the team to know? Because if we get a case, they’ll ask.”

JJ was silent for a moment before shaking her head “No, they can know, I just don’t think I could tell them, but don’t tell them unless they ask.”

Hotch agreed.

\-----------------------------------------------------

JJ and Chloe were back in Jack’s office with Henry again the next day around noon, which is why she never saw Hotch’s text at 12:30 that they had a case in Oregon, but not to worry about them and that he hoped everything went as well as possible with Chloe.

Jack was explaining a little bit more about what that day’s procedure would do, but every carefully skipping a couple of aspects, not wanting to freak Chloe out too much. Once they were done talking, Henry, Jack, and Chloe once again made their way to a room.

Chloe was more able to get her own clothes undone this time, but Jack still helped because he didn’t want her to herself. Again, the anesthesiologist came, coincidentally the same one as the first time, quickly doing another spinal tap, though Jack knew it would be even less effective this time seeing as this procedure was, to be honest, worse.

He had explained to Chloe and JJ in his discussion earlier, that he’d actually had the occasional patient fall unconscious from pain during this procedure, and had asked Chloe if she wanted him to keep going if she did, or to wake her up. She’d very adamantly stated if it was bad enough to make her pass out in pain, she wanted him to do as much as he possibly could while she was out, but that she was pretty sure she wouldn’t. Jack had nodded, and once Chloe had the spinal block in, assisted by Jack and Henry, went back to the same position she had been a few days prior, with her head in Henry’s lap.

Jack got everything he needed set up near him and stood up from the chair he’d rolled over between her legs. He pushed her gown up to her waistline, cleaned and dried off everywhere that he would probably need to work with, and picked up a marker, as he didn’t quite need to put her legs up in the stirrups yet.

“All right, Chloe, we're going to start by figuring out just what areas you're feeling pain, where everything is still particularly sensitive. Every point that is tender, I'll put a mark on with a marker, okay?”

Chloe bit her lip and muttered “Everywhere.”

Jack just gently rubbed her knee and started on the outer edge by her hip joint.

Chloe nodded.

Jack put a single marker dot, then pressed softly about an inch away. Another nod - another dot.

Jack slowly inched his way all the way into the the center of her pubic bone, where she was flinching even at his barely brushing the spot, and back out to the right edge of her hip joint on that side. He gently pushed her legs apart slightly, and worked down the edge of her groin on the left side, before moving to the center where he knew it would be bad, but he could only hope it wasn’t. He wasn't about to press on her clit, that would be way too much, and by his guesses, excruciating. But directly above the clit hood itself, to the left and to the right, which, his gut turned as he touched each spot, which he doubted Chloe realized was, anatomically speaking, still the clit. Chloe sucked in a pained breath each time. Clearly those areas were right up there as the most painful, along with the center of her pubic bone right above.

Jack held back a shudder, as did Henry who was 99% sure he knew where Jack was pressing. Jack had to bite his lip as he marked the three spots.

By the time Jack had finished mapping Chloe’s pelvic area with dots, her pubic area and inner thighs looked like a connect-the-dots game.

He winced as he looked it over, he hadn’t told her that each dot meant a shot for a very specific reason, she would lie up, down, left, and right, but right now, the brother in him desperately wished he’d told her so she hadn’t said yes so many times, even though the doctor in him knew it was important.

Jack swallowed roughly before saying “What I’m going to do now, is put an injection into each area we just marked. It will increase blood flow to the area, and give the tendons extra platelets, helping the muscles and tendons to heal faster."

Jack and Henry could both tell she’d heard nothing past the word ‘injection.’ Her entire face had contorted into one of complete horror.

Chloe bit her lip, "Can I change my answers?" Her brow was crinkled, and the smile on her face was meant to seem like the question was a joke, but Jack knew it wasn't. Who would want over 20 injections into their pubic bone? And even more into their thighs?

Jack gave her a small smile in an attempt to be reassuring.

Jack set about the gut turning process of filling 22 vials with lidocaine, and the other 22 with the thick, gel based substance that was the PRP injections. Three would go down from her hip to the center of her pubic bone on each side, with one in the center being the first seven. Then there were two on each side of her vagina, on the edge of her groin, and the 3 that circled her clit, which was the next 7. The last 8 would be split four and four to each thigh into the 4 spots he marked.

He grabbed the first syringe of lidocaine “Okay, you ready to get started?”

Chloe bit her lip but whispered out a yes.

Jack positioned the first one over the center of the base of her pubic bone, might as well start off with one of the worst ones, and give her a break with some of the only very painful ones.

Henry’s eyes widened slightly, but he moved his hands out of her hair and just to the sides of her body as he realized Jack’s plan. His hands were hovering only centimeters from her body, ready to hold her flat against the table if she tried to jump away, so she wouldn’t hurt herself more with a needle in her.

As Jack pushed the needle in smoothly, Chloe’s face twisted up instantly, and she let out a loud cry of shock and pain before pinning her mouth shut and sucking her lips into her mouth to try not to scream. Chloe whimpered and her eyes dripped the first couple of tears that had welled up quickly.

Jack knew Chloe was tough, but he was giving her internal gymnast major credit, if someone was pushing a needle directly into his pubic symphysis, he would probably be screaming loud enough for people on the floor below to hear it. And, she was holding herself so amazingly still. Her body was trembling just the barest amount, but the rest of her body was like it was frozen in time. He removed the needle and spoke quietly “Now for the PRP. This might burn, but it shouldn’t be as bad as the lidocaine.”

That wasn’t necessarily the complete truth, some people said the lidocaine felt like it did absolutely nothing for them, while others said they were completely numb, but he wouldn’t know until he tried in her case.

He slid the larger needle into the same spot he’d just numbed. It was a gel based injection rather than water, which meant it was thicker, which meant it would likely hurt more, and Chloe’s body shook slightly from the pain. Jack frowned, she was apparently one of those people who fell into the first category.

The second one was just as painful as the first shot of lidocaine, as Chloe gave up on trying to hold back her tears. The third set of shots brought gasps and suppressed gags against the pain. The fourth set brought utter sobbing, and the fifth Chloe gave up and screamed.

Chloe got through the next two by screaming, and Jack waited only a moment before grabbing the 8th set. He would do her thighs next, at least one before they took a break. He didn’t want to take too many breaks, or it would get harder and harder to keep coming back to the same intense pain. Chloe screams got impossibly louder and higher pitched. Once he finished the 11th set, he set the needles down and wiped at her pubic area and left thigh, cleaning the blood off of it with a towel.

He rubbed Chloe’s knee, “We’re halfway done.”

Chloe’s face seemed even more depressed at that, this was indescribable, unimaginable, utter hellacious, pain.

Jack checked his watch, they were just over an hour and a half in.

“Ready to get back to it?”

“Okay.”

Jack glanced up to Henry and saw he was watching everything with anxious eyes. “Okay Chloe, now that you’ve gotten more used to the pain, I’m going to do the worst one next.”

Chloe’s eyes went wide in horror as she eyed the dot she’d had Jack mark just barely above her clit, and the ones next to it.

“Please? Can we skip those?”

Jack had, well other than 0.1% of the time, had always been honest with her, and he wasn’t planning on changing that. "Chloe, I'd like to, and I do understand. But that is the area that gives you the most pain- dead center of your pubic bone, and the most sensitive location on your entire body. But if I leave that area alone, it's just going to keep hurting, which will make everything worse.”

Chloe still just stared at him anxiously so Jack continued 

"I don't want you to have to go through all this, only to not get that spot done, and because of that, have it undo all the good of the other injections. If that happened, you'd have to come back in and re-do this entire procedure."

Finally, Chloe nodded slightly and Henry reached down to lay his hands over her stomach, easily lacing his fingers into hers in the process.

Jack slowly pushed the needle into the spot above her clit.

Chlow screamed in agony. And when the pain didn't stop, she just kept screaming. Jack and Henry both hoped that she'd be lucky and pass out. Her body levitated off the exam table just slightly. He knew it was a sheer pain response. Sadly, that was exactly what he’d been hoping she didn’t do. The involuntary movement caused the needle to be pushed in further, only increasing Chloe’s pain.

Chloe was shaking, screaming and sobbing. Sweat and tears mixed in rivers down her face.

"You're doing great Chloe," Jack spoke softly. "Just breathe."

He withdrew the needle, and replaced it with the second injection, eliciting only slightly lower pitched screams. He worked his way through the next two sets as quickly as he could which was still agonizingly slow, until he finally finished the third spot next to her clit.

Withdrawing the needle, he saw Henry’s and Chloe’s hands, laced together tightly, both white-knuckled in their grips on each other.

Scanning the gymnast’s body, it was obvious that Chloe was almost entirely off the table. The only points of her body in contact with the table was one heel, a shoulder blade, the side of her pelvis Jack wasn’t working on, and her head was tipped back against Henry’s thigh. Other than this, which Chloe could not help, she was motionless aside from her unconscious trembling. And she'd moved slowly enough the whole time as to not knock Jack’s needle out of its position. Or, maybe she'd just gotten lucky on that point.

Chloe gasped for breath between the tears, but was unable to relax her body enough to lay on the table again.

Jack desperately wanted to talk to her, reassure her, but he could tell she was in no condition to even attempt to get coherent sentences out.

“It’s going to be okay, Chloe, we’re getting closer.”

The next two sets down the side of her groin Jack hadn’t done yet, elicited much the same level of screaming. Chloe had just hit her pain threshold for any one point in time and couldn’t even attempt to keep silent anymore.

Jack gave her another break finally, knowing all he had left was her last thigh. He cleaned up the blood that was puddling again and changed his gloves, again, that had become quite a mess. He threw all of that away and situated another clean towel under her hips and thigh, and stepped up towards her head, gently guiding her body back flat against the table.

When her breathing was a little more stable, he went back to his chair, and put on another pair of gloves, readying himself for the last 4 spots.

He slid the first lidocaine needle into her skin and injected it as he fought not to flinch from her screams. He did the PRP needle next, and again she still screamed, but it was just barely a couple of decibels lower.

He moved to the next spot, and worked his way through the last 3 sets of injections, until finally, almost an hour after he’d started that thigh, he set the last needle and slumped as he let out a sigh. Of relief, exhaustion, he wasn’t quite sure, but he completely cleaned her off this time, getting all of the blood off from everywhere, and then going back with a warm, damp cloth to get any residual sterilizing solution off of her skin. He threw away all the towels before she opened her eyes and put all of the empty needles on his tray into the needle bin. He lightly held her legs to move them out of the stirrups and set them onto the table gently rubbing the tops of her thighs.

The process of her leaving again, just over 4 hours after they’d gotten there, was much the same as two days prior, with much the same instructions for JJ about Chloe, though he added in that she’d be particularly sore and sensitive for a couple of days, but they should really start seeing improvement in her pain after about a week, but that he still wanted her laying down as much as possible for the first 3 weeks after that, even if she felt like she could walk because it didn’t hurt as much, her muscles still needed time to heal.

********Rewind to 12:30********

Hotch was looking over some consult requests that he knew would be piling up for JJ when she got back, when he found one that they definitely needed to come in on. He called in the team telling them to just meet on the plane, and then sent JJ a text that they had a case just so she would know.

He got on the jet and was quickly joined by the rest of the team, all quickly asking where JJ was.

Hotch held a hand up to silence them “JJ told me yesterday that on the chance we would get a case today, to use one of her vacation days because she could not come in. That said, I texted her telling her we were going on a case, but that she didn’t need to worry about it, and I didn’t call her so that what she’s doing wouldn’t be interrupted. She hasn’t responded yet, so I would assume she’s busy.”

They all started firing questions at him again, wanting to know what the heck was going on, what he wasn’t telling them, where she was, what she was doing. Hotch shook his head as everyone had to sit down and buckle up so the plane could take off. “We’ll talk about it later, but for right now, we’ll go over the case once we’re in the air.”

The team begrudgingly agreed, knowing that if Hotch said he wasn’t going to tell them now, he wouldn’t be convinced to.

Once they were cruising through the sky towards Oregon, they briefed the case, and once Hotch dismissed them to go relax and rest before the cases, Emily spoke up “Aaron what’s going on with JJ.”

Hotch frowned “We’re going on a case, it’s not the right time, Prentiss.”

Emily’s eyes flared where she was sitting across from him and dropped her voice to an icy whisper “Don’t you dare Prentiss me Aaron, you told us to go rest or relax, we’re done briefing, we can’t do anything until we get to Oregon which is still hours away.”

Hotch’s face attempted to show a slight annoyance, but the whole team could also see traces of fear and anxiety in his normally stoic face, whatever the news was, wasn’t going to be good. They pulled Garcia in over the computer so Hotch wouldn’t have to repeat himself and finally he spoke.

“JJ wasn’t at work on Thursday because Chloe was having the first of a two part procedure done, and she’s having the second part done today.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence before Dave asked “What procedure?”

“I’m not entirely sure, I know they’re to treat whatever was wrong with her groin when we all were over at JJ’s house, but I’m not sure, I know it’s a series of injections into the messed up muscles or tendons or whatever, and I know that it takes a long time.”

Emily spoke up “I mean, I’m sure the boys know what the procedure is, they’re making sure she’s okay right?”

Hotch nodded “Yeah, Jack’s uh, Jack’s actually the one doing the procedures, apparently it’s a very specialized, complicated procedure and he’s one of the only ones around here who can. From what JJ explained, it’s treating something called… pubic symphasitis? It’s a series of shots of something the first time, in and around her, uh, pubic area, and then the second time it’s another series of injections of something called… PRP? Into the muscles and tendons in her groin and thighs.”

Spencer spoke up “Platelet Rich Plasma. That’s what PRP stands for. Jack would draw her blood and spin it to isolate the platelet richest portions of the plasma and then inject that into the damaged tissues. The first time would have most likely been some kind of muscle relaxant if I had to guess, to get her muscles to go back to a more natural position so that the PRP could actually get into them and help everything start healing. It’s sometimes regarded as one of the most painful procedures ever by nationally renowned or even worldwide, highly advanced experts in the medical field. It’s broken into two procedures, the muscle relaxant, and the PRP, because each portion can last for many hours depending on the severity. In Chloe’s case, based on what I saw and Jack and Hank were talking about, each procedure would last approximately two or three hours.”

The whole plane looked at him horror at that, but as if that wasn’t bad enough, Hotch spoke up “I think Chloe’s was even worse than you thought, JJ said her first procedure lasted 3 and a half hours and Jack expected her second to be about the same, or potentially a little bit longer.”

The whole team went from looking horrified, to almost every one of them just looking straight nauseous at the thought.

Derek looked at Hotch wide eyed, “Three and a half hours of being stuck with needles, Jesus Christ.”

The team all voiced mumbled agreement at the horror at that.

**\--------------------------------**

The team finished the case in only three days, and returned home. The team was all anxious to see Chloe, but Hotch stopped them, telling them he’d already checked in with JJ, and that Chloe was doing okay, but still in quite a bit of pain, and that she’d be in to work the next day, but not so come bombard Chloe yet, and she’d let them know when it was okay.

The team had begrudgingly agreed, even though Garcia was practically vibrating in her need to go see her niece.

The team had accosted JJ in the morning the first time they all saw her, but she had just given them the same update Hotch had the previous day, and the whole team, and Garcia especially, gave her plenty of gifts and treats for Chloe.

Just over two weeks after her second procedure, Chloe was actually really feeling a difference finally, and while she was still in pain, it finally felt more like what she would equivalate to an actual pulled muscle that what she’d been feeling before, but she now had a new problem, which Jack had predicted, but from 2 weeks of not moving after the procedures, and all the time of barely moving before them, her muscles were extraordinarily weak and even if she wasn’t still under orders not to move much, her leg muscles were weak enough she doubted she could have much anyways.

Another week later, Jack had her come in for another exam, and afterwards, told her he wanted her to start PT again, and so, slightly nervously, she went to her first session, happy when she had a different therapist, and then even happier when Jack stopped by as well during her session.

About two months after she started PT, and having slowly increased how much she was doing, Jack had her come in for one last exam, and Hank did his own checks as well, and the two of them had told her she was free to move around and do what she liked, and could start light exercising again, and she had been beyond thrilled.

That weekend, as it was a particularly hot weekend of summer, Dave invited everyone over to his mansion for a pool party, and Chloe was finally able to thoroughly enjoy being able to play around in the pool and not be in pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't planned for this to be the end, but I've run out of inspiration, so I'm thinking this is going to be the end of this story unless I get some miraculous plot idea. Hope you enjoyed!


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